Can I make a Gantt chart in Google Sheets for free?

Yes. A date grid with one conditional formatting rule, like the one on this page, gives you basic bars at no cost. A ready-made template saves the setup and adds phases, status colors, holidays and a link to the rest of your project data.

Should a Gantt chart show days or weeks?

Weeks suit projects longer than a month, because the whole plan fits on one screen. Days suit short, tightly packed projects such as a two-week event build, where a one-day slip matters.

What is the difference between a Gantt chart and a project timeline?

A project timeline usually shows milestones and key dates along one line. A Gantt chart gives every task its own bar with a start and end date, so you can see overlaps, owners and how one phase hands over to the next.

How long should each task on a Gantt chart be?

Between one day and about two weeks works well: short enough that you notice a slip within a week. Split longer work into smaller tasks, and keep tiny to-dos in a checklist instead of on the chart.

Gantt Chart Template for Google Sheets and Excel With Holidays

This Gantt chart template for Google Sheets and Excel turns your task list into a timeline for one project at a time: each task becomes a bar across week columns, grouped by phase and colored by status. It is one of the tabs in our project management spreadsheet, and it suits freelancers, small teams and anyone planning a launch, an event or a renovation without paying for project software.

You never draw a bar by hand. You enter tasks once, and the chart redraws whenever a date or status changes.

What the Gantt Chart Template Shows

The chart reads the one-off (variable) tasks you have already entered for a project. Each task needs:

Project. The chart shows one project at a time, and you choose which one.
Phase. Tasks are grouped under the phases you name on the setup tab, such as Plan, Create, Build and Launch.
Owner, start date and due date. The bar runs from the start date to the due date across the week columns.
Status. The bar color follows the status: completed, in progress, delayed, on hold, not started or pending.

Two more layers come from the setup tab. The working days you tick and the holidays and days off you list are marked on the chart, so you can see when a bar crosses a day nobody is working. A today marker shows where the calendar stands against the plan, which makes a late task obvious at a glance.

Recurring tasks, such as a weekly check-in, stay off the chart. They live on their own schedule tab, so routine work does not clutter the timeline.

Worked Example: A Seven-Week Course Launch

Say Nadia is launching an online course with two helpers: Tom edits video and Priya handles marketing. The project runs from Monday, October 5 to Friday, November 20, 2026. The setup tab lists three non-working dates: October 12 and November 11 as holidays, and Monday, November 16 as a team day off. Working days below exclude weekends and those three dates, the same count the NETWORKDAYS function gives.

Phase	Task	Owner	Start	Due	Working days	Status
Plan	Outline the modules	Nadia	Oct 5	Oct 9	5	Completed
Plan	Write the sales page	Nadia	Oct 13	Oct 16	4	Completed
Create	Write the worksheets	Priya	Oct 19	Oct 23	5	Delayed
Create	Record the videos	Nadia	Oct 19	Oct 30	10	In progress
Create	Edit the videos	Tom	Oct 26	Nov 6	10	In progress
Build	Set up the course platform	Priya	Nov 2	Nov 6	5	Not started
Build	Upload lessons and test	Tom	Nov 9	Nov 13	4	Not started
Launch	Affiliate outreach	Priya	Nov 2	Nov 13	9	On hold
Launch	Write the email sequence	Priya	Nov 9	Nov 13	4	Pending
Launch	Webinar and open enrollment	Nadia	Nov 17	Nov 20	4	Not started

The project spans 47 calendar days but only 32 working days. With week columns starting on each Monday, the bars fall like this:

Task	Oct 5	Oct 12	Oct 19	Oct 26	Nov 2	Nov 9	Nov 16
Outline the modules	■
Write the sales page		■
Write the worksheets			■
Record the videos			■	■
Edit the videos				■	■
Set up the course platform					■
Upload lessons and test						■
Affiliate outreach					■	■
Write the email sequence						■
Webinar and open enrollment							■

Read it on Wednesday, October 28 and the today marker sits in the Oct 26 week, three working days after the worksheets were due, and that bar is still marked delayed. That is the first thing to fix. Priya also has two overlapping bars in each of the next two weeks, so if the worksheets spill into November, the on hold affiliate outreach is the obvious task to push back. And because the Monday of the last week is a day off, the webinar can start no earlier than Tuesday, November 17.

How to Set Up the Gantt Chart in the Spreadsheet

On the setup tab, tick your working days, list holidays and days off, and name your phases, statuses and people.
Add the project on the project manager tab with its start and end dates, owner and priority.
Enter each task on the variable tasks tab with its project, phase, owner, start date, due date and status.
Open the Gantt chart tab and choose the project. Tasks appear under their phases, with bars across the week columns.
Update the status as work moves and the bar color follows. To reschedule, change the dates in the task list; there are no bars to drag.
Once a week, look left of the today marker. Any bar there that is not completed needs a new date or an honest status of delayed or on hold.

The Method Behind a Useful Gantt Chart

A Gantt chart is only as good as the task list under it. Three habits make the difference:

Break the work down before you date it. A work breakdown structure turns “launch the course” into deliverables and tasks, and its top level usually becomes your phases. Our guide to project phases has phase sets for common project types.
Count working days, not calendar days. Durations should skip weekends and holidays, as the NETWORKDAYS guide shows, and any fixed date such as a launch needs a buffer in front of it. For planning backward from a deadline, see how to create a project timeline and our event planning timeline.
Set dependent start dates yourself. A spreadsheet Gantt chart shows dates, not links between tasks, so start each task after the one it waits on. In the example, editing starts a week after recording, once there is footage to edit.

For a full walkthrough of building the chart from scratch, including the stacked bar chart method, see how to make a Gantt chart in Google Sheets and how to make a Gantt chart in Excel.

Build Your Own Gantt Chart in Google Sheets or Excel

The conditional formatting method works the same way in both apps. The minimum layout:

Column A: Task. B: Owner. C: Start. D: Due. E: Status. F: Working days.
Row 2 from G onward: one column per week, each header holding that week’s Monday date. Put the first Monday in G2, then =G2+7 in H2 and copy it right.
A sheet named Setup with your holidays in A2:A30.

Working days in F3, identical in Google Sheets and Excel:

=NETWORKDAYS(C3, D3, Setup!$A$2:$A$30)

If you would rather type a duration in F and let the sheet find the due date, put this in D3 instead (the start date must be a working day):

=WORKDAY(C3, F3-1, Setup!$A$2:$A$30)

The bars. Select G3:Z50 and add a custom formula rule that is true when the week overlaps the task:

=AND(G$2<=$D3, G$2+6>=$C3)

In Google Sheets this is Format > Conditional formatting > Format cells if > Custom formula is. In Excel it is Home > Conditional Formatting > New Rule > Use a formula to determine which cells to format.

Status colors. Add one rule per status, such as =AND(G$2<=$D3, G$2+6>=$C3, $E3="Delayed"). Google Sheets applies the first matching rule in the list, so drag the status rules above the plain bar rule. In Excel, rules higher in the Conditional Formatting Rules Manager win when two fills conflict.

Today marker. On G2:Z50, add a border or light fill with =AND(TODAY()>=G$2, TODAY()<=G$2+6).

Holiday weeks. To shade a week that contains a listed holiday, the formula differs:

Excel: =COUNTIFS(Setup!$A$2:$A$30, ">="&G$2, Setup!$A$2:$A$30, "<="&G$2+6)>0
Google Sheets: =COUNTIFS(INDIRECT("Setup!A2:A30"), ">="&G$2, INDIRECT("Setup!A2:A30"), "<="&G$2+6)>0

Google Sheets conditional formatting cannot point at another sheet directly, which is why the range goes inside INDIRECT. For a daily grid instead of weeks, put a date in each header and use =AND(G$2>=$C3, G$2<=$D3, WEEKDAY(G$2,2)<6), which leaves Saturdays and Sundays blank.

Who This Gantt Chart Template Suits

It fits well if you:

run projects with clear phases, such as client work, launches, events or a renovation;
want the timeline, the project budget and the Kanban board to come from one task list;
plan in weeks and review the plan once a week.

It is not the right tool if your team needs automatic dependencies, critical path scheduling or resource leveling, or wants to reschedule by dragging bars. Our comparison of spreadsheets and project management software helps you decide. It is also coarse for hour-by-hour schedules, since the columns are weeks.

One last tip: write the dependency into each task’s description, such as “starts after recording”. The chart cannot draw that arrow, and a single line saves your helpers from guessing.