How to calculate difference between two dates in months in MySQL

Question

I have two columns in a MySQL table:

• DateOfService (datetime)
• BirthDate (date)

I want to run a MySQL query that will provide date difference between these two fields in months.

How can I do this in a MySQL select query?

Thanks.

Solution 1

This could work:

SELECT 12 * (YEAR(DateOfService) 
              - YEAR(BirthDate)) 
       + (MONTH(DateOfService) 
           - MONTH(BirthDate)) AS months 
FROM table

Solution 2

Have a look at the TIMESTAMPDIFF() function in MySQL.

What this allows you to do is pass in two TIMESTAMP or DATETIME values (or even DATE as MySQL will auto-convert) as well as the unit of time you want to base your difference on.

You can specify MONTH as the unit in the first parameter:

SELECT TIMESTAMPDIFF(MONTH, '2012-05-05', '2012-06-04')
-- 0

---

SELECT TIMESTAMPDIFF(MONTH, '2012-05-05', '2012-06-05')
-- 1

---

SELECT TIMESTAMPDIFF(MONTH, '2012-05-05', '2012-06-15')
-- 1

---

SELECT TIMESTAMPDIFF(MONTH, '2012-05-05', '2012-12-16')
-- 7

It basically gets the number of months elapsed from the first date in the parameter list. This solution accounts for the varying amount of days in each month (28,30,31) as well as leap years.

---

If you want decimal precision in the number of months elapsed, it's a little more complicated, but here is how you can do it:

SELECT 
  TIMESTAMPDIFF(MONTH, startdate, enddate) +
  DATEDIFF(
    enddate,
    startdate + INTERVAL
      TIMESTAMPDIFF(MONTH, startdate, enddate)
    MONTH
  ) /
  DATEDIFF(
    startdate + INTERVAL
      TIMESTAMPDIFF(MONTH, startdate, enddate) + 1
    MONTH,
    startdate + INTERVAL
      TIMESTAMPDIFF(MONTH, startdate, enddate)
    MONTH
  )

Where startdate and enddate are your date parameters, whether it be from two date columns in a table or as input parameters from a script:

Examples:

With startdate = '2012-05-05' AND enddate = '2012-05-27':
-- Outputs: 0.7097

---

With startdate = '2012-05-05' AND enddate = '2012-06-13':
-- Outputs: 1.2667

---

With startdate = '2012-02-27' AND enddate = '2012-06-02':
-- Outputs: 3.1935

Solution 3

Try this:

SELECT DATEDIFF(DateOfService, BirthDate) / 30 as months FROM ...

Solution 4

TIMESTAMPDIFF(MONTH, Start_date, End_date)

Example:

SELECT TIMESTAMPDIFF(MONTH, BirthDate, DateOfService) AS Months FROM Table

Solution 5

TRY with

PERIOD_DIFF(P1,P2)

Returns the number of months between periods P1 and P2. P1 and P2 should be in the format YYMM or YYYYMM. Note that the period arguments P1 and P2 are not date values.

mysql> SELECT PERIOD_DIFF(200802,200703); -> 11

View more solutions

Comments

[amaster]

this does not answer the OP question as it does not accept datetime format or even date format. Maybe if this question was edited showing this then I might retract my -1.

[Vaishu]

i have used this query..issue arises particular date. the dates are 2014-01-30 to 2014-03-02 differs 30days only.but it is returns 2 months difference.

[Dipen]

Hey i am able to achieve above result but my condition is that i need 0.5 year , 1 year, 1.5 year, 2 year ,2.5 year and so on.. how could i do that!!