How to Compare Dates in VBA (With Examples)

You can use the following basic syntax in VBA to compare two dates:

Sub CompareDates()
    Dim i As Integer

    For i = 2 To 5
        If CDate(Range("A" & i)) < CDate(Range("B" & i)) Then
            Result = "First Date is Earlier"
    Else
        If CDate(Range("A" & i)) > CDate(Range("B" & i)) Then
                Result = "First Date is Later"
            Else
                Result = "Dates Are Equal"
            End If
        End If
        
    Range("C" & i) = Result
    
    Next i
End Sub

This particular example will compare the dates in the corresponding cells in the ranges A2:A5 and B2:B5 and return the result of the date comparisons in the range C2:C5.

Note: The CDate function converts the value in a given cell to a date.

The following example shows how to use this syntax in practice.

Example: Compare Dates in VBA

Suppose we have the following two columns with dates in Excel:

Suppose we would like to compare the dates in each corresponding row and output the results of the date comparison in column C.

We can create the following macro to do so:

Sub CompareDates()
    Dim i As Integer

    For i = 2 To 5
        If CDate(Range("A" & i)) < CDate(Range("B" & i)) Then
            Result = "First Date is Earlier"
    Else
        If CDate(Range("A" & i)) > CDate(Range("B" & i)) Then
                Result = "First Date is Later"
            Else
                Result = "Dates Are Equal"
            End If
        End If
        
    Range("C" & i) = Result
    
    Next i
End Sub