Working Days and Chargeable Days Calculator
This chargeable days calculator works out how many days a year you can actually charge a customer for, after bank holidays, annual leave, sick days, training and the days lost to quoting and admin.
Want more FieldHive calculators in your Google results?
Google lets you choose the sites you want to see more of. Add FieldHive as a preferred source and our free trade calculators show up more often when you search.
Add FieldHive as a preferred sourceOne click. You can change it any time in your Google settings.Was this calculator useful?
We keep our trade calculators free to use — no sign-up to run them and no pop-ups. If it helped, an honest review helps us improve them and helps other trade businesses find them.
Leave an honest Google reviewReviews are optional. Please only review based on your genuine experience.What a working days calculator leaves out
A day rate or a revenue target only works if it is built on the right number of days.
Start from 260 working days a year and the maths looks generous. Take out bank holidays, annual leave, sick days and training, then the whole days that go to quoting, ordering materials and admin with no billable work done, and the real number is a lot smaller.
This calculator removes the guess. It builds a chargeable-days figure up from what actually happens across a working year, so the number that feeds a day rate or a capacity plan is real.
What comes out of a working year
Bank holidays
8 in England and Wales; Scotland and Northern Ireland differ.
Annual leave
Paid time off beyond bank holidays.
Sick days
An honest average, not zero.
Training and CPD
Toolbox talks, certifications, apprenticeship day-release.
Non-chargeable days
Whole days spent quoting, ordering, invoicing or travelling, where no customer is billed for that day at all.
A worked example
A standard 5-day week with 8 bank holidays, 20 days' leave, 5 sick days, 5 training days and roughly one non-chargeable day a month.
Working days in the year: 5 × 52 = 260. Days off (bank holidays, leave, sick and training): 8 + 20 + 5 + 5 = 38. Days actually at work: 260 − 38 = 222.
Take off 12 non-chargeable days for quoting, admin and travel and you get 210 chargeable days for the year — 94.6% of the days actually worked. That is 17.5 chargeable days a month, or roughly 4.7 in a 5-day week.
At an example day rate of £280, that is an annual day-rate revenue capacity of £58,800 — a ceiling, not a promise, since it assumes every chargeable day is actually booked and invoiced.
Chargeable days vs the Billable Hours Calculator
Both start from the same working year and the same deductions — bank holidays, annual leave, sick days, training. The difference is what happens next.
The Billable Hours Calculator works at the hour level: it subtracts travel and admin hours from every working day, so a day can still count as partly billable. This calculator works at the day level: a day only stops being chargeable if the whole day goes to quoting, admin or travel.
Both views are useful. The hour-level figure suits anyone pricing by the hour. This day-level figure suits anyone pricing by the day — a day rate, a fixed number of chargeable site days, or a capacity plan built around whole working days.
How this fits with the other calculators
Chargeable days is a foundation figure, not a finished one.
Working Days and Chargeable Days
This page. How many days a year can actually be charged for — the day-level number behind anything priced by the day.
Tradesperson Day Rate
Sets the £/day rate itself. This calculator supplies the number of days that rate can be charged across.
Billable Hours
The same question at hour level, for anyone pricing by the hour rather than the day.
Who this is for
Built for sole traders, subcontractors and small trade businesses who price by the day and want a realistic capacity figure before setting a day rate or a revenue target — not a payroll system, and not a substitute for advice on employment terms.
Turn chargeable days into a booked diary
FieldHive keeps the enquiry, quote, job, invoice and payment connected, so the days you planned to charge for are the days that actually get booked and invoiced.
Build the supporting figures
Use these alongside the chargeable days calculator.
Tradesperson Day Rate Calculator
Set the £/day rate these chargeable days get charged at.
Set a day rate →Billable Hours Calculator
The same question at hour level, for anyone pricing by the hour.
Work out billable hours →Trade Business Overhead Calculator
Work out the overhead these chargeable days have to cover.
Work out overheads →Chargeable days questions
Quick answers to the questions people ask most.
Know the days before you set the rate
Work out how many days a year you can genuinely charge for, then build the day rate on that instead of on 260. FieldHive keeps the quote, job and invoice connected.
