How to Use TODAY and NOW in Excel

TODAY returns today's date and NOW returns the date and the current time. On their own they're a clock on the sheet; combined with other formulas they keep deadlines, ages and overdue flags up to date without you retyping anything. The catch is that they keep changing, so you also need to know how to enter a date that stays put.

The syntax

=TODAY()

=NOW()

Neither function takes any arguments, but the empty parentheses are required. =TODAY without them returns a #NAME? error.
TODAY returns the current date with no time (midnight at the start of the day).
NOW returns the current date and the current time.
Both are volatile: Excel works them out again every time the workbook recalculates, so the result is always the date (and time) of the latest recalculation.

You'll rarely use them alone. Most of the time TODAY() is one piece of a bigger formula, like this one that counts the days until a due date:

Reading a days-until-deadline formula

=B2¹-²TODAY()³

B2The due date
-Subtracting one date from another gives the number of days between them
TODAY()Today's date, updated whenever the sheet recalculates

Count the days until a deadline

The sheet below tracks four tasks and their due dates. You'll put today's date in one cell and count the days left for each task. The pictures on this page use Thursday, October 15, 2026 as today, and show dates as 2026-10-15; your Excel shows today's real date in your own regional date format.

Put today's date in its own cell
Click E2, type =TODAY() and press Enter. Excel shows today's date.
A B C D E
1 Task Due date Days left Status Today
2 Budget report 2026-11-01 2026-10-15
3 Team survey 2026-10-09
4 Client slides 2026-10-15
5 Website update 2026-10-30
E2 holds =TODAY(). In this picture, today is 2026-10-15.
Subtract today from the due date
Click C2 and type:
=B2-$E$2
The dollar signs lock the reference to E2, so it still points at today's date after you copy the formula down. Press Enter: the budget report is due on November 1, 17 days away.
A B C D E
1 Task Due date Days left Status Today
2 Budget report 2026-11-01 17 2026-10-15
3 Team survey 2026-10-09
4 Client slides 2026-10-15
5 Website update 2026-10-30
The due date in B2 minus today's date in E2 is 17 days.
Copy the formula down
Select C2:C5 and press Ctrl+D. Each row now counts its own days left.
A B C D E
1 Task Due date Days left Status Today
2 Budget report 2026-11-01 17 2026-10-15
3 Team survey 2026-10-09 -6
4 Client slides 2026-10-15 0
5 Website update 2026-10-30 15
17, -6, 0 and 15 days. The negative number shows the team survey was due 6 days ago.

A positive result is the number of days left, 0 means the task is due today, and a negative result means the date has passed. Tomorrow, every number in column C drops by one without you touching the sheet.

You could write =B2-TODAY() in each row instead. Keeping TODAY() in one cell has a bonus: to check how the sheet will look on another day, type a fixed date in E2 for a moment, then put =TODAY() back.

Dates are numbers underneath

Excel stores every date as a serial number, a count of days in which January 1, 1900 is day 1. October 15, 2026 is 46310. Formatting makes it look like a date. That's why date math works:

Formula	Result	Why
`=B2-TODAY()`	17	Two dates subtracted give the days between them
`=TODAY()+30`	2026-11-14	Adding a number moves the date forward that many days
`=TODAY()-1`	2026-10-14	Yesterday
`=NOW()`	2026-10-15 14:30	The time is the decimal part: 46310.6041666667 at 2:30 PM
`=NOW()-TODAY()`	14:30	Only the time part (0.6041666667); format the cell as a time to read it

A day is 1, so an hour is 1/24 and 2:30 PM is 14.5/24 = 0.6041666667 of a day. NOW()-TODAY() strips off the whole days and leaves that fraction. Give the cell a time format such as h:mm in Format Cells (Ctrl+1), or Excel shows the raw decimal.

Real-world scenarios

In each scenario, today is October 15, 2026.

Finance

Flag overdue invoices

Accounts receivable keeps a list of invoices. Column C should say Overdue once an invoice's due date has passed. Combine TODAY with IF:

	A	B	C
1	Invoice	Due date	Status
2	INV-101	2026-09-30	Overdue
3	INV-102	2026-10-15	Open
4	INV-103	2026-11-01	Open

IF compares each due date with today and returns Overdue or Open.

=IF(TODAY()>B2,"Overdue","Open")

INV-101 was due on September 30. Today is later than that, so it's Overdue. INV-102 is due today: today is not later than today, so it's still Open. Use >= instead of > if your rule is that an invoice due today already needs chasing. Add conditional formatting to color the Overdue rows, and the list updates itself every morning.

Years of service

HR wants each employee's completed years of service for an anniversary list. DATEDIF with the unit "Y" counts whole years between two dates:

	A	B	C
1	Employee	Start date	Years
2	Maria	2019-03-01	7
3	Daniel	2023-10-16	2
4	Priya	2026-01-05	0

DATEDIF counts only completed years from the start date to today.

=DATEDIF(B2,TODAY(),"Y")

Maria started on March 1, 2019: 7 full years. Daniel started on October 16, 2023, so his third anniversary is tomorrow and today he has 2 years. Priya started in January, so she has 0. The same formula with a birth date gives a person's age.

School

Exam countdown

A student wants a countdown next to each exam. Subtract today from the exam date and join the number into a sentence with &:

	A	B	C
1	Exam	Date	Countdown
2	Math	2026-10-26	Math in 11 days
3	Science	2026-11-02	Science in 18 days
4	History	2026-11-09	History in 25 days

The days until each exam, built into a short message.

=A2&" in "&(B2-TODAY())&" days"

The math exam on October 26 is 11 days away, so C2 says Math in 11 days. The parentheses make Excel finish the subtraction before it joins the text. The message updates every day until the exam.

Budget

Daily spending allowance

You have 510 left in this month's budget and want to know how much you can spend per day. EOMONTH(TODAY(),0) returns the last day of the current month:

	A	B
1	Left to spend	510
2	Days left in month	17
3	Per day	30

Days left in October, counting today, and the daily allowance they leave.

=EOMONTH(TODAY(),0)-TODAY()+1

The last day of October minus October 15 is 16; adding 1 counts today as well, so B2 shows 17. B3 divides 510 by 17 for a daily allowance of 30. Tomorrow the allowance recalculates from whatever you have left.

Work out an age

DATEDIF(start_date, end_date, unit) counts the time between two dates. The start date must come first.

Formula	Returns	For a birth date of March 8, 1992
`=DATEDIF(B2,TODAY(),"Y")`	Completed years	34
`=DATEDIF(B2,TODAY(),"YM")`	Months left over after the full years	7
`=DATEDIF(B2,TODAY(),"D")`	Total days, the same as `=TODAY()-B2`	12639
`=YEARFRAC(B2,TODAY(),1)`	Years as a decimal	about 34.6

Join two DATEDIF results to get "34 years, 7 months":

=DATEDIF(B2,TODAY(),"Y")&" years, "&DATEDIF(B2,TODAY(),"YM")&" months"

Excel doesn't suggest DATEDIF as you type it (it's an old function kept for compatibility), but it works in every current version. Use YEARFRAC when you want a decimal, for example to calculate pro-rated amounts; the 1 tells it to use the actual number of days in each year. For a whole-number age, stick with DATEDIF and "Y".

Enter a date that doesn't change

TODAY and NOW are the wrong tool for recording when something happened, such as the date an order arrived: the cell will show a different date tomorrow. Use a shortcut instead. It types the current date or time into the cell as a fixed value.

You want	Do this	Changes later?
A date that is always today	`=TODAY()`	Yes, on every recalculation
Today's date, fixed	`Ctrl`+`;`	No
The current time, fixed	`Ctrl`+`Shift`+`;`	No
Date and time, fixed	`Ctrl`+`;`, a space, then `Ctrl`+`Shift`+`;`	No

To freeze a cell that already contains =TODAY(), copy it and paste it back as values (right-click, then choose Values under Paste Options).

When do TODAY and NOW update?

They recalculate whenever Excel recalculates the workbook: when you open it, when you enter or change anything on the sheet, and when you press F9. They don't tick by themselves, so NOW() shows the time of the last recalculation, not a live clock. Because they change on opening, Excel may ask whether to save a workbook that contains them even if you didn't edit anything.

Common mistakes

A number of days shows as a date. =B2-TODAY() displaying 1/17/1900 means the cell has a date format. Change it to General or Number.
Using TODAY to record when something happened. A "date received" column built with =TODAY() shows today's date in every row tomorrow. Press Ctrl+; to enter a fixed date.
Comparing NOW with a date. =IF(NOW()>B2,"Overdue","") marks a task as overdue on its own due date, because any time after midnight is greater than the date. Use TODAY() when you compare whole dates.
Forgetting the parentheses. =TODAY and =NOW return #NAME?. Type =TODAY() and =NOW().
DATEDIF dates in the wrong order. If the start date is later than the end date, DATEDIF returns #NUM!. Put the earlier date first.
Dates stored as text. A date typed in a format Excel doesn't recognize, or imported as text, stays aligned to the left, and date math on it can return #VALUE!. Re-enter it as a real date, or convert it with DATEVALUE.

Practice

Track the deadlines

The practice sheet can't use TODAY(), because its answer would change every day, so E2 holds a fixed date that stands in for today. Click a highlighted cell, type the formula in the bar above the sheet and press Enter. Then build the same tracker in Excel with =TODAY() in E2, and check tomorrow that the days left have gone down by one.

Try it0 of 4 done

In C2, work out how many days are left until the due date in B2. Use the date in E2 as today.
In C3, do the same for the team survey. What does a negative result mean?
In D3, show Overdue if the due date in B3 is before today (E2), otherwise On track.
In D4, use the same test for the client slides, which are due today.

Click a dashed cell, type a formula in the bar and press Enter.

	A	B	C	D	E
1	Task	Due date	Days left	Status	Today
2	Budget report	2026-11-01			2026-10-15
3	Team survey	2026-10-09
4	Client slides	2026-10-15
5	Website update	2026-10-30