A business week is the five-day span from Monday through Friday, excluding weekends and public holidays. It’s the standard window during which banks process transactions, retailers ship orders, government offices operate, and most professional workplaces are open. When a company says something will take “one business week,” they mean five business days, which could stretch to seven or more calendar days depending on when you start counting and whether any holidays fall in between.
How a Business Week Differs From a Calendar Week
A calendar week is always seven days. A business week strips out Saturday and Sunday, leaving five working days. This distinction matters most when you’re tracking a deadline, waiting on a shipment, or expecting a bank transfer. If someone tells you a process takes five business days starting on a Wednesday, the clock doesn’t tick on Saturday or Sunday. That means you’re looking at the following Wednesday, not Monday.
Public holidays add another wrinkle. If a federal holiday like Memorial Day or Labor Day falls on a Monday, that week only has four business days instead of five. A “one business week” timeline that starts the Tuesday after a holiday Monday would push your expected completion date to the following Monday rather than the previous Friday.
Where Business Weeks Show Up in Daily Life
Shipping and Delivery
Retailers and carriers commonly quote delivery windows in business days rather than calendar days. USPS Priority Mail, for example, promises delivery in one to three business days. In practice, a package mailed on a Friday afternoon could take until the following Wednesday or Thursday to arrive, since the weekend doesn’t count. If you order something on a Thursday with “five business day shipping,” expect it the following Thursday at the earliest, not Tuesday.
Banking and Financial Transactions
Banks use business days to define processing times for deposits, transfers, and bill payments. If you deposit a check on Friday and the bank says funds are available in two business days, you won’t have access until Wednesday. If Monday happens to be a holiday, push that to Thursday. Online bill payments follow the same logic: scheduling a payment on Friday typically means it won’t post until Monday, or Tuesday if Monday is a holiday.
Stock Trades
When you buy or sell stock, the trade settles in one business day after the transaction is processed. Settlement is when the shares or cash officially transfer into your account. A trade placed on Friday settles Monday. A trade placed on Thursday before a long weekend settles the following Tuesday.
Contracts and Legal Deadlines
Many contracts specify deadlines in business days. If a contract gives you five business days to respond and the deadline lands on a Saturday, it typically extends to the next business day, which would be Monday. This convention prevents deadlines from expiring when offices are closed and parties can’t take action.
Business Hours Within a Business Day
Each business day generally runs from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. local time, the traditional eight-hour window when most companies, banks, and government agencies are open. Transactions or requests submitted after 5:00 p.m. on a business day are usually processed the next business day. So a bank transfer initiated at 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday effectively counts as a Wednesday transaction for processing purposes.
Some industries keep different hours. Stock markets open at 9:30 a.m. and close at 4:00 p.m. Eastern time. Customer service centers may extend hours into the evening. But for calculating business day timelines, the 9-to-5 framework is the baseline most organizations use.
The Legal Definition for Employment
Federal labor law defines a workweek slightly differently than the colloquial “business week.” Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, a workweek is a fixed, recurring period of 168 hours, or seven consecutive 24-hour periods. It doesn’t have to run Monday through Friday or align with the calendar week at all. An employer can set its workweek to begin on any day and at any hour. A restaurant might define its workweek as Wednesday through Tuesday. A hospital might use Sunday through Saturday.
This matters for overtime calculations. Employers must pay overtime for hours worked beyond 40 in a single workweek, and they can’t average hours across two weeks to avoid it. If you work 50 hours one week and 30 the next, you’re still owed overtime for the first week. The workweek your employer has established is the boundary that determines when overtime kicks in.
Counting Business Days Accurately
When you need to count business days from a specific date, start with the next full business day after the event. If you mail a package on Monday, day one of the delivery estimate is Tuesday. Count forward, skipping Saturdays, Sundays, and any federal holidays. For financial transactions, also note the cutoff time: most banks set a daily processing cutoff around 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., and anything submitted after that rolls to the next business day.
The federal holidays that affect business day calculations include New Year’s Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Presidents’ Day, Memorial Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Some businesses close for additional days, like the day after Thanksgiving, but the federal holiday calendar is the standard most industries follow when defining which days count.