MONTH Function in Excel: Month Number From a Date

📎 This article includes 1 downloadable practice file ↓

Date & TimeLevel: BeginnerAvailable in: Excel 2007+

In this article

1. Syntax
2. Examples
3. Example 1
4. Example 2
5. Example 3
6. MONTH in practice
7. Where you will use it
8. Worked example
9. Mistakes people make
10. Related functions
11. Continue learning

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.

MONTH in practice

Where you will use it

• Monthly totals with SUMPRODUCT or pivots
• Financial-year logic (month < 4)
• Seasonality analysis

Worked example

Date	Formula	Result
04-Oct-2026	=MONTH(A2)	10
15-Feb-2027	=MONTH(A3)	2
01-Apr-2026	=MONTH(A4)	4

Results calculated in Excel.

Mistakes people make

Mistake	What to do instead
Text dates	Convert first
Needing the month name	Use TEXT(date,"mmmm")

Related functions

YEAR · EOMONTH · TEXT

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All Date & Time guides →

TIMEVALUE Function in Excel: Text Time to Real TimeDateLevel: IntermediateAvailable in: Excel 2007+TIMEVALUE turns text like "2:45 PM" into a real time…DATEVALUE Function in Excel: Convert Text Dates Into Real DatesDATEVALUE turns a date written as text into a real date number. It follows…MINUTE Function in Excel: Minute From a TimeDateLevel: BeginnerAvailable in: Excel 2007+MINUTE returns 0–59 from a time.Syntax=MINUTE(serial_number)ArgumentWhat it.SECOND Function in Excel: Second From a TimeDateLevel: BeginnerAvailable in: Excel 2007+SECOND returns 0–59. Mostly used to strip seconds from machine.

📎 Practice files for this article

• 📗
  Practice workbook: Dates & times22 tasks on realistic sales data — type your formula, the Check column turns green when it is right. Answers sheet included.
  ⬇ XLSX · 34 KB

Free to use for learning. Files with macros (.bas) are plain text — import them with Alt+F11 → File → Import File, and always test on a copy.