Calculating the difference between two Java date instances

Days d = Days.daysBetween(startDate, endDate);
int days = d.getDays();

https://www.joda.org/joda-time/faq.html#datediff

There are many ways you can find the difference between dates & times. One of the simplest ways that I know of would be:

      Calendar calendar1 = Calendar.getInstance();
      Calendar calendar2 = Calendar.getInstance();
      calendar1.set(2012, 04, 02);
      calendar2.set(2012, 04, 04);
      long milsecs1= calendar1.getTimeInMillis();
      long milsecs2 = calendar2.getTimeInMillis();
      long diff = milsecs2 - milsecs1;
      long dsecs = diff / 1000;
      long dminutes = diff / (60 * 1000);
      long dhours = diff / (60 * 60 * 1000);
      long ddays = diff / (24 * 60 * 60 * 1000);

      System.out.println("Your Day Difference="+ddays);

The print statement is just an example - you can format it, the way you like.

After wading through all the other answers, to keep the Java 7 Date type but be more precise/standard with the Java 8 diff approach,

public static long daysBetweenDates(Date d1, Date d2) {
    Instant instant1 = d1.toInstant();
    Instant instant2 = d2.toInstant();
    long diff = ChronoUnit.DAYS.between(instant1, instant2);
    return diff;
}

If you want to fix the issue for date ranges that cross daylight savings time boundary (e.g. one date in summer time and the other one in winter time), you can use this to get the difference in days:

public static long calculateDifferenceInDays(Date start, Date end, Locale locale) {
    Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance(locale);

    cal.setTime(start);
    cal.set(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY, 0);
    cal.set(Calendar.MINUTE, 0);
    cal.set(Calendar.SECOND, 0);
    cal.set(Calendar.MILLISECOND, 0);
    long startTime = cal.getTimeInMillis();

    cal.setTime(end);
    cal.set(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY, 0);
    cal.set(Calendar.MINUTE, 0);
    cal.set(Calendar.SECOND, 0);
    cal.set(Calendar.MILLISECOND, 0);
    long endTime = cal.getTimeInMillis();

    // calculate the offset if one of the dates is in summer time and the other one in winter time
    TimeZone timezone = cal.getTimeZone();
    int offsetStart = timezone.getOffset(startTime);
    int offsetEnd = timezone.getOffset(endTime);
    int offset = offsetEnd - offsetStart;

    return TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS.toDays(endTime - startTime + offset);
}

Earlier versions of Java you can try.

 public static String daysBetween(Date createdDate, Date expiryDate) {

        Calendar createdDateCal = Calendar.getInstance();
        createdDateCal.clear();
        createdDateCal.setTime(createdDate);

        Calendar expiryDateCal = Calendar.getInstance();
        expiryDateCal.clear();
        expiryDateCal.setTime(expiryDate);


        long daysBetween = 0;
        while (createdDateCal.before(expiryDateCal)) {
            createdDateCal.add(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH, 1);
            daysBetween++;
        }
        return daysBetween+"";
    }

The following is one solution, as there are numerous ways we can achieve this:

  import java.util.*; 
   int syear = 2000;
   int eyear = 2000;
   int smonth = 2;//Feb
   int emonth = 3;//Mar
   int sday = 27;
   int eday = 1;
   Date startDate = new Date(syear-1900,smonth-1,sday);
   Date endDate = new Date(eyear-1900,emonth-1,eday);
   int difInDays = (int) ((endDate.getTime() - startDate.getTime())/(1000*60*60*24));

Since dates can contain hours and minutes, final result will be rounded down, which will result in incorrect value. For example, you calculate difference between today at 22:00 p.m and day after tomorrow 00:00 a.m, so the final result will be 1, because in reality it was 1.08 or smth difference, then it gets rounded down when calling TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS.toDays(..). That's why you need to take that in account, so in my solution I subtract the remainder of milliseconds from milliseconds in a day. Additionally, if you want to count the end date, you need to +1 it.

import java.util.Date;
import java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit;

public static long getDaysBetween(Date date1, Date date2, boolean includeEndDate) {
        long millisInDay = 60 * 60 * 24 * 1000;
        long difference = Math.abs(date1.getTime() - date2.getTime());
        long add = millisInDay - (difference % millisInDay);//is used to calculate true number of days, because by default hours, minutes are also counted

        return TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS.toDays(difference + add) + (includeEndDate ? 1 : 0);
    }

Tests:

Date date1 = new Date(121, Calendar.NOVEMBER, 27); //2021 Nov 27
Date date2 = new Date(121, Calendar.DECEMBER, 29); //2021 Dec 29
System.out.println( getDaysBetween(date1, date2, false) ); //32 days difference
System.out.println( getDaysBetween(date1, date2, true) ); //33 days difference