How to Create a Formula to Increase a Date by 1 Month

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Microsoft Excel is a powerful program. If you are using it for a calendar or anything else where you might need to find the date exactly 1, 2, or 3 months after another date here is a formula you can use.

Things You Should Know

  • The DATE function makes it easy to increment dates by days, months, or years.
  • When editing a formula with the DATE function, you can simply add +1 to the month.
  • You can also use the EDATE function to increase the date by one month.


Steps

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    Ex. 1/1/2006
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    Ex. 5
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    =DATE(YEAR( A2 ),MONTH( A2 )+ B2 ,MIN(DAY( A2 ),DAY(DATE(YEAR( A2 ),MONTH( A2 )+ B2 +1,0))))replacing what is in bold with the appropriate cells for your spreadsheet.
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    Another option is to use =EDATE(start_date,months)
    This is a simpler method but can only be used if the Analysis ToolPak add-in is installed.
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      • Calculating the Day is complicated due to the varying 30 and 31 day months. This formula will take a date like 10/31/2006 and add 1 month to become 11/30/2006. Whereas, a more simple formula without the MIN function may give the incorrect date of 12/1/2006.
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