MONTH Function in Excel: Month Number From a Date

⏱ 1 min readUpdated 28 September 2026

Date & TimeLevel: BeginnerAvailable in: Excel 2007+

In this article
  1. Syntax
  2. Examples
  3. Example 1
  4. Example 2
  5. Example 3
  6. Related functions

MONTH returns 1 for January through 12 for December — the building block for monthly reports and fiscal-period logic.

Syntax

=MONTH(serial_number)
Argument What it means
serial_number A real date.

Examples

Example 1

=MONTH(A2)

7 for July.

Example 2

=MOD(MONTH(A2)-4,12)+1

Fiscal month: April = 1 … March = 12.

Example 3

=TEXT(A2,"mmm")

Month name instead of a number.

YEAR · EOMONTH · TEXT

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