Published 1 January 2025 · 7 min read

How Many Business Days Are in a Month? (2025 & 2026)

Whether you're running payroll, building a project timeline, or working out when an invoice will actually get paid, you need to know how many business days are in a given month. And if you've ever just assumed "about 20" and plugged that into a spreadsheet, you've probably been caught out at least once. The real number swings between 19 and 23 depending on the month, and getting it wrong can throw off billing, deadlines, and capacity planning more than you'd expect.

Business days per month — 2025 (England & Wales)

Month	Weekdays	Bank Holidays	Business Days
January	23	1	22
February	20	0	20
March	21	0	21
April	22	2	20
May	22	2	20
June	21	0	21
July	23	0	23
August	21	1	20
September	22	0	22
October	23	0	23
November	20	0	20
December	23	2	21

2025 total: 253 business days (England & Wales)

Business days per month — 2026 (England & Wales)

Month	Weekdays	Bank Holidays	Business Days
January	22	1	21
February	20	0	20
March	22	0	22
April	22	2	20
May	21	2	19
June	22	0	22
July	23	0	23
August	21	1	20
September	22	0	22
October	22	0	22
November	21	0	21
December	23	2	21

2026 total: 253 business days (England & Wales)

Why the count varies month to month

Three things determine how many business days you get in any given month:

• How long the month is — February's only got 28 days (29 in a leap year), so it'll always have the fewest weekdays. July and October, with 31 days each, tend to come out on top.
• Where the weekends fall — if the 1st lands on a Monday, you'll squeeze in more weekdays than if it falls on a Saturday. This shifts every year, which is why you can't just reuse last year's numbers.
• Bank holidays — April and May tend to lose 2 business days each (Easter and the two May bank holidays), August loses one, and December typically loses 2 for Christmas. That's your real-world capacity right there.
• Your region — if you're in Scotland or Northern Ireland, you've got different bank holidays, so the monthly counts won't match England and Wales exactly.

The "danger zone" months

Some months are notorious for catching people off guard. Here are the ones to watch:

December is the big one. On paper it's got 23 weekdays, but Christmas and Boxing Day bank holidays knock it down to 21 — and let's be honest, most offices are running on skeleton staff from about the 20th anyway. If you're planning deliverables for December, you've realistically got about 15 productive business days.

April regularly trips people up because Easter moves every year. Good Friday and Easter Monday always fall in April (sometimes March, but usually April), removing 2 days. Combined with the fact that many people take the whole week off, April's effective working capacity is lower than the numbers suggest.

May is deceptive too — two bank holidays in one month means you're down to 19–20 business days, which is the joint lowest alongside February in some years.

Why this matters for payroll

If you're salaried, the number of business days doesn't change your monthly pay — you get the same amount regardless. But if you're a contractor, freelancer, or agency worker billing by the day, this stuff matters a lot. The difference between a 19-day month and a 23-day month is roughly 20% of your income. That's a significant swing.

Payroll teams need accurate counts for other reasons too. When someone starts or leaves partway through a month, HR has to pro-rata their salary based on business days worked versus total business days in the month. Get the denominator wrong and you'll either overpay or underpay — neither of which goes down well.

Holiday entitlement is another area where this crops up. Converting annual leave from weeks to days for part-time staff means you need the actual working day pattern, not a rough average.

Common mistake: using the same number every month

We see this all the time. Someone builds a spreadsheet, hardcodes 20 or 21 business days per month, and uses it for forecasting, billing, or resource planning. It works fine... until it doesn't. A month with 23 business days gives you 15% more capacity than one with 20. If you're billing clients by the day, quoting timelines, or planning sprints, that discrepancy adds up fast.

Our advice? Build your spreadsheets with actual monthly counts, not averages. Use the tables above, or better yet, use a calculator that does it live.

Project planning tips

If you're estimating that a project will take 40 working days, don't just divide by 20 and assume it's two months. Check which actual months the work falls in. A project starting on 1 April 2025 and needing 40 business days has to navigate Easter (2 bank holidays in April) and two more in May. You won't finish until mid-June — a full three weeks later than someone naively dividing 40 by 20 would expect.

For sprint planning in agile teams, shorter months mean fewer story points get delivered. It sounds obvious, but it's remarkable how many teams set the same velocity target every sprint regardless of bank holidays. Then they "miss" their targets in April and December and wonder why.

Billing and invoicing

If you run a consultancy or bill clients by the day, make sure your contracts are clear about what happens in short months. Does a "monthly retainer" assume a standard 21 days, or does it flex with the actual count? We'd recommend being explicit — it saves awkward conversations later.

For direct debits and regular payments, bear in mind that if a payment date falls on a weekend or bank holiday, it'll typically process on the next business day. In a month like December, when bank holidays cluster together, this can shift your cash flow by several days.

Annual totals

Both 2025 and 2026 have 253 business days in England and Wales. The monthly average works out to about 21, but as we've covered, individual months range from 19 to 23 — so the average is a bit misleading if you're using it for anything precise.

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