YEAR Function in Excel: Year 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. Common errors and fixes
  6. Related functions

YEAR returns the four-digit year of a date. MONTH and DAY work the same way for the month (1–12) and day (1–31).

Syntax

=YEAR(serial_number)
Argument What it means
serial_number A real date (not text that looks like a date).

Examples

Example 1

=YEAR(A2)

2017 from 12-Jul-2017.

Example 2

=YEAR(A2)+(MONTH(A2)>=4)

Indian financial-year end year: 12-Jul-2017 → 2018 (FY 2017–18).

Common errors and fixes

You see Why, and the fix
#VALUE! The “date” is text. Convert with DATEVALUE or Text to Columns.
Returns 1900 The cell is empty or contains a small number, not a date.

MONTH · DAY · DATE

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