The Excel DATEVALUE Function

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Related Function:

TIMEVALUE

Excel Dates & Times

Note that Excel stores dates & times as numerical values. It is purely the formatting of these numbers that tells Excel to display a date or a time.

For more information on dates & times in Excel, see the Excel Dates & Times page.

Basic Description

The Excel Datevalue function converts a text representation of a date, into an Excel date.

- ie. the function converts a text string representing a date, into the serial number that represents the date in Excel's date-time code.

The syntax of the Datevalue function is :

DATEVALUE( date_text )

where the date_text argument is a text string representing a date.

Interpretation of Date Text Strings

Note that the Datevalue function follows simple rules that are the same as if you type a date directly into a cell. These are :

If just a date and month are provided, the date returned will have the current year
The default settings for the year are that one- and two-digit years are interpreted as follows:

- The numbers 0 through to 29 are interpreted as the years 2000 to 2029

- The numbers 30 through to 99 are interpreted as the years 1930 to 1999

These rules are illustrated in the examples below.

Datevalue Function Examples

The following spreadsheet shows several examples of the Excel Datevalue function. The format of the function is shown in the spreadsheet on the left and the result is shown in the spreadsheet on the right.

Formulas:

Examples of use of the Excel Datevalue Function

Results:

Note that, in the above example spreadsheet:

The text string in cell A5 contains just a day and month, and so the returned date uses the current year. As these examples were input into Excel in the year 2011, the returned date has the year 2011.
The cells in the results spreadsheet all have the general formatting type. These values can be displayed as dates by setting the cell formatting. To do this:

Highlight the cell(s) to be formatted
Right click with the mouse
Select the Format Cells ... option and ensure the Number tab is selected
Under the Category heading, select the option Date. Select a date format from the list on the right and click OK

For more details on formatting in Excel, go to the Excel Formatting page.

Further information and examples of the Excel Datevalue function can be found on the Microsoft Office website.

Datevalue Function Error

If you get an error from the Excel Datevalue function, this is likely to be the #VALUE! error :

Common Error

#VALUE!

Occurs if the supplied date_text cannot be recognised as a valid Excel date.

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