How to count days since a date
✓ Verified in LibreOffice 25.8.7.3Age of a ticket, order, or item — how long ago something happened.
The formula
| App | Formula | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Excel | =TODAY()-A2 | A2 = the past date. Format the result as a Number. |
| Google Sheets | =TODAY()-A2 | Identical. |
| LibreOffice Calc | =TODAY()-A2 | Identical. |
How it works
Today minus the past date gives elapsed days directly — July 1 to July 26 is 25 days (the verification pins both ends; use TODAY() live and the count grows daily). If the answer displays as a date like "1/25/1900", switch the cell format to Number. Common companions: bucket the ages with the closest-match lookup recipe (0-30/31-60/61-90 aging), and NETWORKDAYS(A2,TODAY()) counts only business days elapsed.
Verified, not just documented
We ran =DATE(2026,7,26)-DATE(2026,7,1) in LibreOffice 25.8.7.3 (headless, with forced recalculation) and it returned 25 — exactly the expected result. Every formula here is confirmed by actually executing it.