Fix a Google Sheets date formula that is not working.

What this page gives you

• A focused repair pass for one Google Sheets date formula.
• Checks for DATEVALUE parsing, locale order, imported text dates, hidden time values, QUERY date literals, and date number formatting.
• A revised date formula or criteria pattern you can test against one known row before using it in a report.

When to use it

Use this page when DATEVALUE says it cannot parse a date, a formula returns a serial number instead of a displayed date, date criteria return zero rows, or QUERY, FILTER, SUMIFS, COUNTIFS, or SORT behave as if dates are text. It is strongest when you can paste the formula and one date value that should work.

Do not treat it as a full data-cleaning audit. Write My Formula can help repair one formula or criteria pattern, but source exports, spreadsheet locale settings, and final date formatting still need to be checked in Google Sheets.

Worked example

An export puts date text in A2, but DATEVALUE cannot parse the mixed string until the usable date portion is extracted first.

=DATEVALUE(REGEXEXTRACT(A2,"\d{4}-\d{2}-\d{2}"))

The formula extracts a yyyy-mm-dd date string before DATEVALUE converts it. After conversion, the result may still need to be formatted as a date instead of a plain serial number.