Add months to date

While working with excel spreadsheets, we might need to add months to date. To do this, we can use the EDATE function as explained in this post.

Figure 1: Adding months to date using EDATE function

General syntax of the formula

=EDATE (date, months)

Understanding how the formula works

Working with this formula is pretty simple. There are very few steps required for you to work with this function and add months to date.

• The function is automatic
• It returns a new date when supplied with a valid date and number of months.
• If you want to subtract months from the given date, then you need to supply a negative value.

While it is recommended to use cell reference, you can also put the number of months directly into the EDATE function.

Things to remember

While working with the EDATE function, you need to format the cells to get the date in your preferred date format.

Example

Figure 2: Using EDATE function to add months to date

In this example, to get the new dates, we need to add the months in column B to the current date in column A.

We then put our formula in cell C2, to get the new date for row 2. We do this by putting our formula in the cell, i.e. =EDATE (A2,B2) and pressing Enter.

To get the new dates for the other cells, we simply copy the formula across the other cells in column C.

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