Date & Time2026-03-184 related articles

DAY Function in Excel

Return the day number from a valid Excel date.

Syntax

DAY(serial_number)

Arguments

serial_number

Required

The date of the day you are trying to find. Dates should be entered by using the DATE function, or as results of other formulas or functions. For example, use DATE(2008,5,23) for the 23rd day of May, 2008. Problems can occur if dates are entered as text .

What it returns

Returns an integer from 1 to 31.

What DAY does

DAY extracts the day-of-month portion from a valid Excel date. Use it when you need to split dates into components for grouping, labels, or calculations.

Practical examples

Extract the day from a date cell

=DAY(A2)

If A2 contains 2026-03-19, the result is 19.

Extract the day from a constructed date

=DAY(DATE(2026,12,5))

This returns 5 and is useful when the date is being built inside the formula.

Common mistakes and notes

Text dates can produce unexpected results

DAY works best with real Excel dates. Plain text such as 05/12/2026 may be interpreted differently depending on locale settings.

DAY returns the calendar day only

It does not tell you the weekday. Use WEEKDAY if you need Monday, Tuesday, and so on.

Time values still belong to a date serial

If a cell contains a date and time, DAY ignores the time portion and extracts only the day number.

Related functions

DATE MONTH YEAR

Deep dives, troubleshooting guides, and practical examples that use DAY.

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