If you are constantly working with dates in your spreadsheet, Google Sheets has many built-in functions that can be useful to you
One such function is the EDATE function.
In this tutorial, I will show you how to use the EDATE function in Google Sheets
Table of Contents
EDATE Syntax
The EDATE function returns a date a specified number of months before or after another month.
To use this function you simply put a date as the first argument of the formula and put either a positive or negative number. A negative number will subtract months and a positive number will add months to your original date.
Here is the syntax of the EDATE function:
=EDATE(start_date, months)
- start_date – this is the starting date used to begin your calculation with
- months – this is how many months to add or subtract. Positive numbers will add months, negative numbers will subtract months
Here are some important notes about using this function:
- The start_date can be either a date put into the function,a cell reference containing a date, or another function returning a date
- Not integers will be truncated to remove decimals
EDATE Examples
Now that we have gone over the basics of this function, let’s take a look at how it is used in a spreadsheet:
As you can see in the above example this function simply increments or decrements the date according to how many months specified in the second argument. Is a very simple function to use.
Closing Thoughts
Since there are only two arguments in this function, it is very easy to learn. Again this is something you may find useful if you are regularly working with date values in Google Sheets.
Just make sure your dates are in the right format to avoid any issues using this.
More Google Sheets Tutorials:
How to Insert Current Date
How to Use the ISDATE Function
How to Use the WORKDAY Function
How to Insert a Date Picker