How Many Working Days Are in a Year?

There are approximately 260 weekdays in a calendar year, which you arrive at by multiplying 52 (the number of weeks in a year) with 5 (the number of days that are part of the typical work week, globally speaking).

However, this does not necessarily mean there are 260 workdays in a calendar year year. We need to account for more variables to get a more precise answer.

As you’ve probably noticed, not every month starts on the same day. And the same is true of years: it would be simple, perhaps, if every new year began on the first Sunday of the first month, but that’s not how it works in practice.

So to understand the exact number of working days in a year, we need to look at which weekday begins the year, and as well as the last day of the year.

You might be asking about the strange, pesky things known as leap years. And this is an especially relevant question in 2024, since it is indeed a leap year.

A leap year is a year with an extra day. This is because Earth’s journey around the sun isn’t exactly 365 days; it’s actually more like 365.25. To accommodate this irregularity, every fourth year gets an extra day in February.

Of course, it all depends on what weekday that extra day falls on. In 2024, February 29th is a Thursday, which means there is one extra work day. However, that doesn't change our running tally because we already accounted for the Thursday in our count of the weekdays.

In the United States, the federal government recognizes 11 public holidays (also known as bank holidays). While this doesn’t mean that every worker will have those days off, many businesses are closed on federal holidays. These days are as follows:

It’s important to note that there are other holidays, such as Cesar Chavez Day, which are celebrated by some states but not by all. In the State of California, in 2024, Cesar Chavez Day falls on April 1st, and all schools and state offices are closed in observance of the labor and immigration rights leader.

If you subtract these from the total we calculated above, that would be:

So, assuming your business or job observes all federal holidays, you would have 251 working days. If you happened to live in California, and Cesar Chavez Day was one of your paid holidays, you'd have a nice, round 250 working days.

Once you’ve calculated your baseline total of potential work days and subtracted the public holidays, you’ll have a pretty good idea of the total working days in a year.

But, few people will work every single one of those days. Most full time employees have an earned allotment of paid time off, which includes a certain amount of time for vacations, personal time and illness.

Without paid time off, hardly anyone would get to take a vacation, schedule an appointment at the doctor, or simply take some occasional time to rest and recuperate.

In the United States, many employees will have 10 to 14 paid vacation days after one year of employment. The average number of sick days available is eight.

Let’s say that your job offers 12 days of paid vacation and eight paid sick days. If you use all 12 vacation days, as well as four of those sick days, you will have 16 extra days that you won’t be working (12 + 4 = 16).

Note, however, that since these days are paid, you will technically be earning money on them, even though you won’t be at work.

Calculating the working days in different months is difficult to do with any predictability, since the beginning and ending of months fall on different days that change with each year.

So, while you can say with certainty that every January will have 31 days, the amount of working days will depend on what day of the week begins and ends the month.

In 2024, January starts on a Monday and ends on a Wednesday. That means that the month of January had 23 working days, not counting holidays.

Calculating the number of working days in a year has some distinct benefits, such as planning for a healthy work life balance. While many people are aware of the general figures — 52 weeks, 365 days, and so forth — you might not know the actual number of working days in a given calendar year, unless you’re working in the HR department.

Knowing these numbers helps in the following ways.

Calculating the average work hours in a year requires another simple equation. The standard work day is eight hours, with the standard weekly work hours being 40.

Therefore, if you want to know how many work hours there are in a year, start with the number of working days. If you multiply that figure by eight, giving you the total working hours.

If we’re starting from the previously calculated baseline of 251 working days in 2024, we can then make this calculation:

That means that the average number of working hours in 2024 is 2,008.