How to use COUPDAYS Function in Excel

The COUPDAYS Function is categorized under financial functions. It helps calculate the number of days in the coupon period that contains the settlement date. Coupon bonds are bonds that pay interest before the maturity of the bond. As a bond purchaser, we will be interested in knowing how long we need to wait until we receive our first interest payment. The COUPDAYS function helps in calculating the number of days between a coupon period’s beginning and settlement date.

Syntax:= COUPDAYS(settlement, maturity, frequency, [basis])

The COUPDAYS function syntax has the following arguments:

  • Settlement    Required. The security’s settlement date. The security settlement date is the date after the issue date when the security is traded to the buyer.
  • Maturity    Required. The security’s maturity date. The maturity date is the date when the security expires.
  • Frequency    Required. The number of coupon payments per year. For annual payments, frequency = 1; for semiannual, frequency = 2; for quarterly, frequency = 4.
  • Basis    Optional. The type of day count basis to use.
Basis Day count basis
0 or omitted US (NASD) 30/360
1 Actual/actual
2 Actual/360
3 Actual/365
4 European 30/360

Example: Let’s look at some Excel COUPDAYS function examples and explore how to use the COUPDAYS function as a worksheet function in Microsoft Excel:

Syntax:  =COUPDAYS(B1,B2,B3,B4)

Result:

Based on the Excel spreadsheet above, the following COUPDAYS examples would return:

Syntax: =COUPDAYS(DATE(2019,3,25),DATE(2019,12,15),2,1)
Result: 182

Syntax: =COUPDAYS(DATE(2019,3,25),DATE(2019,12,15),B3,B4)
Result: 182

Note:

  • In Excel, dates are serial numbers.
  • All arguments are truncated to integers, so for example, time is ignored.
  • If settlement or maturity dates are not valid, COUPDAYS returns #VALUE!
  • If basis is out-of-range , COUPDAYS returns #NUM!
  • If maturity date is not later than settlement date, COUPDAYS returns #NUM!

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