Microsoft Excel Dates & Times

Below are the various samples of dates and times formula in Excel.

Present

Press CTRL+; to have the latest date in a cell. Date is the current system date of your computer.
Press CTRL+: to have the current time in a cell. Time is the current system time of your computer.
Type =TODAY() in a cell to get today's date. It will automatically change when you re-open the file.
Type =NOW() to put the current date and time in a cell.
Remember, although time changes every second, you will not see the cell updated unless the formula is somehow re-calculated.
This is done by,

To check if today is after or before the date in cell A1, use =TODAY()>A1
This will be TRUE if A1 has a past date and FALSE if A1 has a future date.
To know how many days are there between TODAY and the date in A1, use =TODAY()-A1
This will be a negative number if A1 is a future date.
To see just the number of days (without negative sign), you can use =ABS(TODAY()-A1)
To know how many hours are left between the time in A1 and current time, use =(NOW()-A1)*24
To just see hours and minutes left, you can use =TEXT((NOW()-A1),"[hh]:mm")
Note: This formula works only when A1 < NOW()
To know how many weeks are left between TODAY() date and a future date in A1, use =(TODAY()-A1)/7
To know how many months are left between TODAY() and date in A1, use = DATEDIF(TODAY(),A1,"m")
Related: How to use DATEDIF function.
To know which month is running, use =MONTH(TODAY())
To see the month name instead of number, use =TEXT(TODAY(),"MMMM")
This shows the month's name in your Excel language.
To know which year is running, use =YEAR(TODAY())
To see the last 2 digits of the year, you can use =RIGHT(YEAR(TODAY()), 2)
To find the day of week for TODAY, use =WEEKDAY(TODAY()).
This will give a number (1 to 7, 1 for Sunday, 7 for Saturday).
To see the weekday name instead of number, use =TEXT(TODAY(),"DDDD").
To see today's date alone, use =DAY(TODAY())
To know if the present year is a leap year or not, click this link.

Past

To go back by 6 days from the date in A1, use =A1-6
To go back to last Friday, use =A1-WEEKDAY(A1, 16).
This works in Excel 2010, 2013. If your time machine is old (ie you have Excel 2003 or earlier versions),
you can use =A1-CHOOSE(WEEKDAY(A1), 2,3,4,5,6,7,1)
To go back by 5 weeks, use =A1-5*7
To go back to start of the month, use =DATE(YEAR(A1), MONTH(A1),1)
To go back to end of previous month, use = DATE(YEAR(A1), MONTH(A1),1)-1 or use =EOMONTH(A1,-1)
To go back by 2 months, use =EDATE(A1,-2)
To go back by 27 working days, use =WORKDAY(A1,-27). This assumes, Monday to Friday as working days.
To go back by 27 working days, assuming you follow Monday to Friday work week and a set of extra holidays,
use =WORKDAY(A1, -27, LIST_OF_HOLIDAYS)
To go back by 7 quarters, use =EDATE(A1,-7*3)
To go back to the start of the year, =DATE(YEAR(A1), 1,1)
To go back to same date last year, =DATE(YEAR(A1)-1, MONTH(A1), DAY(A1))
To go back a decade, =DATE(YEAR(A1)-10, MONTH(A1), DAY(A1))

Future

To go to the 17th working day from date A1, assuming you use Sunday to Thursday workweek, use =WORKDAY.INTL(A1,17,7).
This formula works in Excel 2010 or above.
To go to next hour, use =A1+1/24
To go to next day morning 9AM, use =INT(A1+1)+9/24
To go to 18th of next month, use =DATE(YEAR(A1), MONTH(A1)+1, 18)
To go to end of the current quarter for date in A1, use =DATE(YEAR(A1), CHOOSE(MONTH(A1), 4,4,4,7,7,7,10,10,10,13,13,13),1)-1
To go to a future date that is 4 years, 6 months, 7 days away from A1, use =DATE(YEAR(A1)+4, MONTH(A1)+6, DAY(A1)+7)

Duration

To know how many days are between 2 dates (in A1 & A2), use =A1-A2
To know how many working days are between 2 dates, use =NETWORKDAYS(A1, A2)
(remember: A1 should be less than A2).

Fixes for common date/time hiccups

If you see ###### instead of a date in a cell, try making the column wider. If you still see ######, that means the date value is not understandable by Excel (negative numbers, dates prior to 1st of January 1900 etc.)
Often when pasting date values in to Excel, you notice that they are not treated as dates.
Use these techniques to fix.
If you pass in-correct values or use wrong parameters, your date formulas show an error like #NUM or #VALUE.
Read this to understand how to fix such errors.