This article describes the formula syntax and usage of the YEAR function in Microsoft Excel.
Description
Returns the year corresponding to a date. The year is returned as an integer in the range 1900-9999.
Syntax
YEAR(serial_number)
The YEAR function syntax has the following arguments:
- Serial_number Required. The date of the year you want to find. Dates should be entered by using the DATE function, or as results of other formulas or functions. For example, use DATE(2008,5,23) for the 23rd day of May, 2008. Problems can occur if dates are entered as text.
Remarks
Microsoft Excel stores dates as sequential serial numbers so they can be used in calculations. By default, January 1, 1900 is serial number 1, and January 1, 2008 is serial number 39448 because it is 39,448 days after January 1, 1900.
Values returned by the YEAR, MONTH and DAY functions will be Gregorian values regardless of the display format for the supplied date value. For example, if the display format of the supplied date is Hijri, the returned values for the YEAR, MONTH and DAY functions will be values associated with the equivalent Gregorian date.
Example
Copy the example data in the following table, and paste it in cell A1 of a new Excel worksheet. For formulas to show results, select them, press F2, and then press Enter. If you need to, you can adjust the column widths to see all the data.
| Data | ||
| Date | ||
| 7/5/2008 | ||
| 7/5/2010 | ||
| Formula | Description (Result) | Result |
| =YEAR(A3) | Year of the date in cell A3 (2008) | 2008 |
| =YEAR(A4) | Year of the date in cell A4 (2010) | 2010 |