Function: YEAR()
🔍 Purpose:
The YEAR() function extracts the year number from a given date.
It’s commonly used in Excel for analyzing financial years, joining years, birth years, or project timelines.
This is one of the simplest yet most powerful date functions — especially when combined with other formulas like MONTH(), DAY(), or TODAY().
🧮 Syntax: =YEAR(serial_number)
Parameter:
-
serial_number: The date from which you want to extract the year.
(It can be a direct date, a cell reference, or a formula that returns a date.)
🧠 Example (Indian Context):
| Date | Formula | Result | Explanation |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12-Jan-2023 | =YEAR(A2) |
2023 | Extracts year from the date |
| 05-Jul-2024 | =YEAR(A3) |
2024 | Shows the year portion |
| =TODAY() | =YEAR(TODAY()) |
2025 | Returns current year automatically |
🧾 Practical Use Cases:
-
Calculate employee joining year
-
Determine admission year of students
-
Extract year of sales for annual reports
-
Find manufacturing year from product dates
-
Group transactions by year in data analysis
📘 Example – Employee Joining Analysis
| Employee Name | Joining Date | Formula | Joining Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ritu Sharma | 05-Mar-2019 | =YEAR(B2) |
2019 |
| Manish Roy | 20-Nov-2022 | =YEAR(B3) |
2022 |
| Diya Ghosh | 14-Feb-2024 | =YEAR(B4) |
2024 |
✅ This helps HR departments easily group employees by the year they joined.
🧮 Advanced Example (with TODAY)
To check whether an employee joined this year, use:
This compares the year of joining with the current year dynamically.
🎯 5 Different Real-Life Project Scenarios
🧾 Project 1: Financial Year Report (Business Scenario)
Objective:
Find which financial year each sales date belongs to.
(In India, financial year runs from April to March)
| Sale Date | Formula | Financial Year |
|---|---|---|
| 15-Mar-2024 | =IF(MONTH(A2)>=4,YEAR(A2)&"-"&YEAR(A2)+1,YEAR(A2)-1&"-"&YEAR(A2)) |
2023–2024 |
| 10-Jul-2024 | =IF(MONTH(A3)>=4,YEAR(A3)&"-"&YEAR(A3)+1,YEAR(A3)-1&"-"&YEAR(A3)) |
2024–2025 |
💼 Goal: Automatically tag every transaction with its corresponding financial year.
🧑🎓 Project 2: Student Admission Year Tracker (Education Scenario)
Objective:
Extract admission year to calculate total study duration.
| Student Name | Admission Date | Passing Date | Admission Year | Total Years |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aritra Sen | 5-Jul-2021 | 20-May-2024 | =YEAR(B2) |
=YEAR(C2)-YEAR(B2) |
| Priya Das | 10-Sep-2022 | 15-May-2025 | =YEAR(B3) |
=YEAR(C3)-YEAR(B3) |
📚 Goal: Track how long students have been enrolled or how long they studied.
🏦 Project 3: Loan Maturity Report (Finance Scenario)
Objective:
Calculate the year in which each customer’s loan will mature.
| Loan Start Date | Duration (Years) | Maturity Year |
|---|---|---|
| 12-Jan-2023 | 5 | =YEAR(A2)+B2 |
| 25-Aug-2022 | 10 | =YEAR(A3)+B3 |
| 30-Mar-2024 | 7 | =YEAR(A4)+B4 |
🏦 Goal: Predict in which year the loans will end, helping in future collection planning.
🧰 Project 4: Product Warranty Expiry (Retail Scenario)
Objective:
Show the year when the warranty for each product expires.
| Product Name | Purchase Date | Warranty (Years) | Warranty End Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| AC (Voltas) | 15-Apr-2023 | 2 | =YEAR(B2)+C2 |
| Refrigerator (LG) | 10-Aug-2024 | 3 | =YEAR(B3)+C3 |
| Laptop (HP) | 20-Oct-2022 | 4 | =YEAR(B4)+C4 |
🛒 Goal: Retail stores can identify warranty expirations for service reminders.
🧑💻 Project 5: Employee Experience Analysis (HR Scenario)
Objective:
Calculate total years of experience till today using the joining date.
| Employee Name | Joining Date | Experience (Years) |
|---|---|---|
| Rohan Saha | 15-Jun-2018 | =YEAR(TODAY())-YEAR(B2) |
| Sneha Roy | 20-Jan-2020 | =YEAR(TODAY())-YEAR(B3) |
| Rahul Das | 1-Dec-2021 | =YEAR(TODAY())-YEAR(B4) |
🧮 Goal: HR can evaluate seniority or eligibility for promotions.
🧠 Pro Tips:
✅ YEAR() works perfectly with DATE(), TODAY(), and NOW() functions.
✅ Combine with MONTH() to analyze yearly or monthly trends.
✅ If you need fractional years between two dates, use YEARFRAC() (coming next).
✅ To get the previous or next year, simply add or subtract: