?How can I use the EDATE function in Google Sheets?

Returns a date a specified number of months before or after another date.

Sample Usage

EDATE(DATE(1969,7,20), 1)

EDATE(A2, 1)

EDATE(40909, -2)

Syntax

EDATE(start_date, months)

• start_date – The date from which to calculate the result.

• months – The number of months before (negative) or after (positive) start_date to calculate.

Notes

• Ensure that the start_date input to the function is either a reference to a cell containing a date, a function which returns a date object such as DATE, DATEVALUE or TO_DATE, or a date serial number of the type returned by the N function. Google Sheets represents dates and times as numbers; while conversion is automatic when a human-readable date is entered into a cell, functions only accept literal dates in numeric format.

• EDATE does not autoconvert number formats in the same way that Google Sheets does upon direct entry into cells. Therefore, EDATE(10/10/2000,1) is interpreted as EDATE(0.005,1), the quotient of 10 divided by 10 divided by 2000.

• Non-integer arguments to months will have their decimal components truncated. Therefore, EDATE(A2,2.6) is equivalent to EDATE(A2,2).

See Also

TO_DATE: Converts a provided number to a date.

N: Returns the argument provided as a number.

EOMONTH: Returns a date representing the last day of a month which falls a specified number of months before or after another date.

DATEVALUE: Converts a provided date string in a known format to a date value.

DATE: Converts a year, month, and day into a date.

Examples

Returns the date of the day which falls months away from the given start_date.

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