How this instrument works
Some questions genuinely only need a years-and-months answer: how long someone worked at a job for a résumé, how many months old a baby is, how long a couple has been together. This instrument answers exactly that question — enter a start date and an end date, and it reports the calendar years and calendar months between them, deliberately leaving out the day-level remainder and running totals that a fuller date-difference tool would also compute.
The count still respects real calendar mechanics underneath the simple output: it works out whole calendar years first, then whole calendar months from there, the same civil-calendar subtraction used across this site's other date instruments. A span just short of a full month rounds down, not up — 8 years and 6 months means 8 full years and 6 full months have actually elapsed, with some number of days left over that this particular tool doesn't report.
For the fuller picture — the leftover days, the total days, the total weeks — this site's month-counter and time-between-dates instruments run the identical underlying math with the extra detail included. Reach for this page specifically when the years-and-months figure alone is the whole answer you're after.
- Enter the first date — a start date, a hire date, a birth date.
- Enter the second date you want the span measured to.
- Read the years and months figure directly beneath the inputs.
- For a day-level breakdown of the same span, use this site's month-counter or time-between-dates instrument instead.
Worked example — 15 Jan 2018 to 28 Jul 2026
Enter 2018-01-15 as the first date and 2026-07-28 as the second. The instrument reports 8 years, 6 months: 8 full years land on 15 January 2026, and a further 6 full months reach 15 July 2026.
That leaves 13 days between 15 July 2026 and 28 July 2026 that this tool doesn't surface — it's deliberately reporting only the years-and-months figure. Someone who started a job on 15 January 2018 and checked their tenure on 28 July 2026 would describe it, accurately, as '8 years and 6 months' without needing to think about the extra 13 days at all.
Questions
Where did the leftover days go?
They're real, just not reported here — this instrument deliberately answers only the years-and-months question. In the worked example, 13 days remain beyond the 8 years and 6 months, but for a résumé line, a baby's age in months, or a relationship-length answer, those extra days rarely matter and this tool leaves them out on purpose.
How do I get the day-level detail instead?
Use this site's month-counter or time-between-dates instrument — both run the identical years-months calculation this page uses, plus the leftover days, total days and total weeks that this leaner tool omits. Reach for those when you need the full breakdown rather than just the headline figure.
Is this the same as dividing total days by 30?
No, and that distinction matters. Dividing a day count by 30 gives an average that drifts against real calendar months, which run 28 to 31 days. This instrument counts actual calendar month boundaries instead, so '6 months' here always means six real calendar months have genuinely elapsed, not an approximation based on a fixed day count.
Can I use this for a baby's age in months?
Yes — enter the birth date as the first date and today (or any date) as the second, and the months figure gives a pediatrician-style age reading like '8 months' once the years component is zero. Once the years figure passes zero, most parents switch to describing age in years and months together, which this instrument also reports correctly.
Why would I use this instead of a full age or date-difference calculator?
Speed and simplicity, mainly. When the years-and-months figure is the entire answer you need — a work-experience length, a relationship anniversary framed in months, a subscription's age — this page skips past the day-level detail that a fuller instrument would compute and display, getting you to the one number you actually wanted.