B4 contains a date value for January 5, 2016. The YEAR function returns the number 2016 representing the year of the date. Note that you can use YEAR to extract the year from a day entered as text: However, using text for dates can cause unpredictable results on computers using different regional date settings. In general it’s better (and more flexible) to supply an address to a cell that already contains a valid date.
Display only year
If you want to enter a date and only display the year, you can apply a custom number format like “yyyy” or “yy”.
Dave Bruns
Hi - I’m Dave Bruns, and I run Exceljet with my wife, Lisa. Our goal is to help you work faster in Excel. We create short videos, and clear examples of formulas, functions, pivot tables, conditional formatting, and charts.
