As a business owner or team lead, there are an endless number of key things you have to keep track of. While some of these are important in obvious ways, some others aren’t. An excellent example of this is the topic of this article: the number of average working days in a month.

The concept of the average number of working days per month seems fairly simple. However, there are a lot of variables at play that you may have never considered. We’ll cover those in this article, exploring average workdays in a month in depth.

What is considered a workday?

A workday is simply a day when employees are expected to work. For the majority of businesses, these are Monday through Friday. Each workday involves a set of working hours, which will largely depend on what schedule your company uses. The most common one is the 9 – 5, which involves 8 straight hours of work. Another popular schedule is the 10 – 7, which accounts for an hour-long break.

Defining what a workday is in the first place is important to get a full understanding of the number of working days in a month, as not all work may be done on workdays. If you want to get a more precise idea of how much work is done in a given period, you may want to calculate work hours in a year instead.

What’s the number of average working days in a month?

On average, there are 20 – 23 work days in a given month. These figures assume a traditional 5-day workweek and don’t account for variables like vacations or public holidays. They will also vary from month to month, given that each month starts on a different day of the week and has a varying number of days. However, 20 – 23 is an excellent range to start with when calculating the exact number of working days in a month.

If you’re looking for a single number instead of a range, there are a few ways to calculate the average number of working days per month

How to calculate the average number of business days in a month?

There are several calculations you can use to get the number of average working days in a month, including:

52 × 5 ÷ 12 = 21.7: Assuming 52 weeks per year, this formula multiplies the number of annual workweeks by the number of weekly workdays. Then, it divides the result by the number of months in a year.

4 × 5 = 20: Assuming 4 workweeks per month, this calculation simply multiplies the number of monthly workweeks by the number of weekly workdays. This formula simplifies the concept of average working days in a month, as most months contain a bit more than 4 full workweeks.

31 – 4 × 2 = 23: Assuming a 31-day month and 4 full weekends, this formula gets the average number of working days per month by subtracting weekends from the total number of days in a month. This calculation makes not one but two assumptions, both of which are variables that can differ in the real world. For example, many believe that 5 full weekends in a month is a rare occurrence, so it’s safe to assume there are only 4 weekends per month. But in reality, 5 weekends in 1 month happens more often than you think.

How to calculate the exact number of working days in a month?

To calculate the exact number of working days in a month, you first need to look at a calendar. As a start, calculate the number of workdays in the month of your choice. Then, you can individualize this number for your business by subtracting any public holidays that apply to it. Furthermore, you can take into account staff vacations as well to get personalized workday numbers for each of your employees.

Why does the number of working days in a month matter?

Knowing the number of working days in a month is essential for calculating payroll accurately. This is especially true if you do so manually with spreadsheet time tracking. However, even if you take advantage of payroll tracking software, knowing the number of workdays per month will help you double-check your payroll figures.

Factors that Can Change the Number of Workdays in a Month

Having covered the basics of the concept, let’s now explore what factors can influence the number of average working days in a month in your business. These include: 

• Holidays
• Staff vacations and leaves of absence
• Shift work and irregular work schedules
• Flexible working hours
• Seasonal, contract, and part-time employment

Holidays

Holidays are one of the most significant factors influencing the average number of workdays per month. If your business operates in just one country, accounting for public holidays isn’t that big of a deal. However, if you take advantage of global hiring, you’ll have to do more work and might want to use a holiday management tool. In this case, the number of business days per month will vary across your teams.

Staff vacations and leaves of absence

Vacations are another contributing factor to the average number of working days per month. Fortunately, accounting for them should be as simple as subtracting available days off from your staff’s annual workdays. However, things can get tricky when dealing with leaves of absence. These typically involve longer periods away from work and are granted for reasons outside of your team’s control. As a result, using a high-quality employee leave management system is invaluable to keep track of workdays in such situations.

Shift work

Shift work can greatly skew the number of work days in a given month across your team. Many shift patterns involve completely different workday rotations than the standard 5-day workweek. This highlights the importance of shift scheduling solutions to get accurate data on the number of workdays in a month across your team.

Flexible working hours

Flexible working schedules provide employees with a lot of freedom, which can result in endless benefits like improved performance. However, keeping track of average workdays in a month becomes challenging with them. To get accurate data on how much your staff work in a specific period, you should use an automated time tracker. This will give you the best results, as well as provide you with additional benefits like simplified workflow management and increased productivity.

Freelance and contract work

Due to its nature, freelance work makes it impossible to calculate the average number of business days per month in advance. There are a lot of factors to consider, like the performance of your freelancers and the terms of your contracts. However, you can get info on how much work has been completed in a particular period with the help of a freelance team time tracker.

FAQs on the Number of Days in a Working Month

Before closing off this article, let’s explore a few frequently asked questions about the topic.

What’s the number of average workdays in a month, ignoring holidays?

The number of average working days in a month is about 21.7, which comes from multiplying 52 weeks/year by 5 days/week and then dividing by 12 months/year. If you want to get more specific, most months have between 20 and 23 working days, ignoring all public holidays.

Is there a way to keep track of work days in a given month in my business?

Yes, you can use a time tracker like WebWork to keep track of work days in a specific month across your business. This will give you data on exactly how much each of your employees worked, helping you manage your company more effectively.

How to calculate the average number of workdays in a month?

You can calculate the average number of business days per month in several ways, including:

• 52 weeks/year × 5 days/week  ÷ 12 months/year = 21.7
• 4 weeks/month × 5 days/week = 20
• 31 days/month – 4 weekends/month × 2 days/weekend = 23

What’s the average number of working days per month in 2025?

Ignoring holidays, there are 21.75 business days per month in 2025. In total, there are 261 working days throughout the year.

How many workdays are there on average in February?

Ignoring leap years, February has 20 working days. If we assume every leap day (February 29th) is a working day, then February will have 20.25 working days on average. However, given the possibility of the date being a weekend, the figure falls somewhere between 20 and 20.25.

How many business days per month are there in each month of 2025?

Each month in 2025 has the following number of business days:

Final Thoughts

The number of the average working days in a month isn’t a figure that’s talked about a lot. However, knowing it can help you enhance your planning efforts and simplify the management of your business. Calculating the average number of workdays per month can be a bit tedious. However, instead of calculating business days in advance, you could instead track the workdays of your staff with an employee time tracker.