Free Biweekly Payroll Calendar Template (Excel)

What's in the biweekly payroll calendar

The file has two sheets: Setup, where you enter your first period start date and your first pay date of the year, and Payroll Calendar, a 26-row table that lists every biweekly pay period for the year with its period start, period end, timesheet due date, and pay date.

Because every date in the calendar is driven off the two Setup dates, the whole year of pay periods appears the moment you fill in those two cells — there's nothing else to type.

A running count of pay periods at the bottom confirms you've got a full 26-period year, which is useful when you're checking payroll budgets or year-end totals against the calendar.

Why it's formula-driven, not year-locked

Most payroll calendars you find online are published for a specific year — 2025, 2026 — and stop working, or start looking wrong, the moment that year ends. You end up re-downloading a new file every twelve months.

This calendar works differently: every period date is calculated from your first period start and first pay date using a 14-day increment formula. Change those two dates for a new fiscal year and all 26 periods, due dates, and pay dates recalculate instantly — no new download, no re-entering 26 rows by hand.

Setting your first pay date and generating the year

Open the Setup sheet and enter the start date of your very first pay period of the year, then the date of your very first pay date. Both should be actual calendar dates, not text.

Switch to the Payroll Calendar sheet and all 26 rows populate at once: period number, period start, period end, the timesheet due date (four days before pay date, adjustable), and the pay date itself, each spaced exactly 14 days apart from the one before it.

If your company's payroll cadence changes — a new first pay date after a merger, a payroll provider switch — updating the two Setup dates regenerates the entire calendar without touching a single formula.

Handling holidays and weekend pay dates

The formulas generate pay dates on a strict 14-day cycle and don't know your company's holiday calendar, so some computed pay dates will land on a weekend or a bank holiday.

When that happens, check the calendar against your holiday list and move that pay date to the business day before, which is standard practice at most companies. Note the adjustment directly in the row so anyone referencing the calendar later sees it was intentional, not an error.