Author: Oscar Cronquist Article last updated on May 09, 2022

The DATEVALUE function returns an Excel date value (serial number) based on a date stored as text.

Excel Function Syntax

DATEVALUE(date_text)

Arguments

date_text Required. The date stored as text you want to convert to an Excel date (serial number).

Comments

A date stored as text can't be sorted, filtered or be used in Excel date calculations. You need to convert the date stored as text to a date that Excel recognizes.

Excel dates are actually serial numbers formatted as dates, 1/1/1900 is 1 and 2/2/2018 is 43133. There are 43132 days between 2/2/2018 and 1/1/1900.

You can try this yourself, type 10000 in a cell, press CTRL + 1 and change the cell's formatting to date, press with left mouse button on OK. The cell now shows 5/18/1927.