What MONTH does
MONTH extracts the month portion from a valid Excel date. It is useful for grouping records by month, building summary tables, or creating date-based labels.
Practical examples
Extract the month from a date cell
=MONTH(A2)
If A2 contains 2026-03-19, the result is 3.
Extract the month from a generated date
=MONTH(DATE(2026,12,5))
This returns 12 and is useful when the date is being assembled in the formula.
Common mistakes and notes
MONTH returns a number, not a month name
If you need Mar or March, use TEXT to format the date instead of MONTH.
Text dates can depend on locale
Imported dates stored as text may be parsed incorrectly if the day-month order does not match your Excel regional settings.
The year does not affect the month result
MONTH always returns just the month number from the serial date, regardless of year or time.