List of date formats by country

Different countries have distinct legal and cultural norms regarding the representation of dates and times, making it crucial to understand the various all-numeric date formats used locally to accurately interpret the intended date.

Traditionally, writers have utilised local conventions to create abbreviated date forms, resulting in numeric representations for day–month sequences like "2 March 2025" (02/03/25, 02/03/2025, 02-03-2025 or 02.03.2025) and month–day formats such as "March 2, 2025" (03/02/25 or 03/02/2025). This practice can lead to confusion, as some dates may be misinterpreted without proper context. For example, the abbreviated date "01/11/06" could mean "1 November 2006" in a DMY format, "January 11, 2006" in an MDY format, or even "November 6, 2001" in a YMD format.

To address these discrepancies, the ISO 8601 standard specifies the format YYYY-MM-DD (2025-03-02), aiming to unify date representation and ensure clarity across different contexts. While many nations have embraced this format as their official standard, it's still common for individuals in these regions to use outdated abbreviated styles.

Usage map

Colour	Order styles	Main regions and countries
	DMY	Europe: Italy, Ukraine, Romania, Netherlands, etc. North America: Mexico, various Caribbean islands Central America: Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, etc. South America: Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Argentina, Peru, Venezuela, etc. North Africa: Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, etc. East Africa: Somalia West, Central, and Southern Africa: Nigeria, Ethiopia, DRC, Tanzania, Sudan, Uganda, South Africa etc. West Asia: Turkey, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, etc. Central Asia: Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan East and Southeast Asia: Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, etc. South Asia: Pakistan, Bangladesh Oceania: Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, etc. Middle East: United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Kuwait, Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan
	YMD	China, Japan, South Korea, North Korea, Taiwan, Hungary, Mongolia, Lithuania, Bhutan
	MDY	Some U.S. island territories
Template:Legend striped	DMY, YMD	India, Russia, Vietnam, Germany, Iran, United Kingdom, France, Myanmar, Spain, Poland, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Nepal, Australia, Cameroon, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, etc.
Template:Legend striped	DMY, MDY	Philippines, Togo, Puerto Rico, Cayman Islands, Greenland
Template:Legend striped	MDY, YMD	United States
	MDY, DMY, YMD	Kenya, Canada, Ghana

Listing

Table coding

All examples use example date 2021-03-31 / 2021 March 31 / 31 March 2021 / March 31, 2021 – except where a single-digit day is illustrated.

Basic components of a calendar date for the most common calendar systems:

• D – day
• M – month
• Y – year

Specific formats for the basic components:

• yy – two-digit year, e.g. 24
• yyyy – four-digit year, e.g. 2024
• m – one-digit month for months below 10, e.g. 3
• mm – two-digit month, e.g. 03
• mmm – three-letter abbreviation for month, e.g. Mar
• mmmm – month spelled out in full, e.g. March
• d – one-digit day of the month for days below 10, e.g. 2
• dd – two-digit day of the month, e.g. 02
• ddd – three-letter abbreviation for day of the week, e.g. Fri
• dddd – day of the week spelled out in full, e.g. Friday

Separators of the components:

• / – oblique stroke (slash)
• . – full stop, dot or point (period)
• - – hyphen (dash)
• – space

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See also

• Date and time representation by country
• Common Locale Data Repository, a database that covers national date and time notations
• ISO 8601

Country	All-numeric date format			Details	Official standard
	YMD	DMY	MDY
Afghanistan	Yes	Yes	No	Short format: d/m/yyyy (Year first, month, and day in right-to-left writing direction) Long format: yyyy mmmm d (Day first, full month name, and year in right-to-left writing direction)
Åland	Yes	Yes	No	Short format: yyyy-mm-dd Long format: d mmmm yyyy
Albania	Yes	Yes	No	dd/mm/yyyy Some YMD
Algeria	No	Yes	No	(dd/mm/yyyy)
Template:Country data American Samoa	No	No	Yes	(mm/dd/yy)
Andorra	No	Yes	No
Angola	No	Yes	No
Template:Country data Anguilla	No	Yes	No
Antigua and Barbuda	No	Yes	No
Argentina	Template:Sometimes	Yes	No	Numeric format: yyyyMMdd (Example: 20030613) Short format: dd/mm/yy (Example: 13/06/03) Medium format: dd/mm/yyyy (Example: 13/06/2003) Long format: d' de 'mmmm' de 'yyyy (Example: 13 de junio de 2003) Full format: dddd d' de 'mmmm' de 'yyyy (Example: viernes 13 de junio de 2003).
Armenia	No	Yes	No	(dd.mm.yyyy)
Aruba	No	Yes	No
Australia	Yes	Yes	No	mmmm d, yyyy is sometimes used, usually informally in the mastheads of magazines and newspapers, and in advertisements, video games, news, and TV shows, especially those emanating from the United States. MDY in numeric-only form is never used. The ISO 8601 date format (2025-03-2) is the recommended short date format for government publications.	AS/NZS ISO 8601.1:2021
Austria	Yes	Yes	No	(Using dots (which denote ordinal numbering) as in d.m.(yy)yy or sometimes d. month (yy)yy).	ÖNORM ISO 8601
Azerbaijan	No	Yes	No	(dd.mm.yyyy)
Bahamas	No	Yes	No
Bahrain	No	Yes	No
Bangladesh	No	Yes	No	Not officially standardised. Bengali calendar dates are also used: দদ-মম-বববব
Barbados	No	Yes	No		BNS 50:2000
Belarus	No	Yes	No	(dd.mm.yyyy)
Belgium	No	Yes	No	(dd/mm/yyyy) or (dd.mm.yyyy)	NBN Z 01-002
Belize	No	Yes	No
Benin	No	Yes	No
Bermuda	No	Yes	No
Bhutan	Yes	No	No
Bolivia	No	Yes	No
Template:Country data Bonaire	No	Yes	No
Bosnia and Herzegovina	No	Yes	No	(d. m. yyyy. or d. mmmm yyyy.)
Botswana	Yes	Yes	No	yyyy-mm-dd for Setswana and dd/mm/yyyy for English
Brazil	No	Yes	No	(dd/mm/yyyy) or (dd.mm.yyyy)	NBR 5892:2019
Template:Country data British Indian Ocean Territory	No	Yes	No
Template:Country data British Virgin Islands	No	Yes	No
Brunei	No	Yes	No
Bulgaria	No	Yes	No	(dd.mm.yyyy)
Burkina Faso	No	Yes	No
Burundi	No	Yes	No
Cambodia	No	Yes	No	Short format: dd/mm/yy Long format: d mmmm yyyy
Cameroon	Yes	Yes	No	(d)d/(m)m/yyyy or d mmmm yyyy for Aghem, Bafia, Basaa, Duala, English, Ewondo, French, Fula, Kako, Kwasio, Mundang, Ngiemboon and Yangben yyyy-mm-dd for Meta' and Ngomba
Canada	Yes	Yes	Yes	ISO 8601 is the only format that the Government of Canada and Standards Council of Canada officially recommend for all-numeric dates. However, usage differs with context. All three long forms are used in Canada. For English speakers, MDY (mmmm-dd-yyyy) (example: April 9, 2019) is used by many English-language publications and media company products as well as the majority of government documents written in English. For French and English speakers, DMY (dd-mmmm-yyyy) is used (example: 9 April 2019/le 9 avril 2019). This form is used in formal letters, academic papers, military, many media companies and some government documents, particularly in French-language ones. Federal regulations for shelf life dates on perishable goods mandate a year/month/day format, but allow the month to be written in full, in both official languages, or with a set of standardized two-letter bilingual codes such as 2019 AL 09 or 19 AL 09.	CAN/CSA-Z234.4-89 (R2007)
Cape Verde	No	Yes	No
Template:Country data Cayman Islands	No	Yes	Yes	DMY and MDY are used interchangeably. Official forms generally tend towards DMY. Month is often spelled out to avoid confusion.
Central African Republic	No	Yes	No
Chad	No	Yes	No
Chile	No	Yes	No	In Chile the format dd/mm/yyyy is used only, or you can also say "3 June 2023" or in Spanish "3 de junio del 2023"You can also use the short format, example "03/06/23".
China	Yes	No	No	National standard format is yyyy-mm-dd (with leading zeroes) and (yy)yy年(m)m月(d)d日 (with or without leading zeroes) Uyghur languages in Xinjiang usually give date examples in the form 2017-يىل 18-ئاۋغۇست or 2017-8-18 (i.e. yyyy-d-mmm) but this form is never used when writing in Chinese; casually many people use (yy)yy/(m)m/(d)d or (yy)yy.(m)m.(d)d (with or without leading zeroes). See Dates in Chinese.	GB/T 7408.1-2023
Template:Country data Christmas Island	Yes	Yes	No
Template:Country data Cocos (Keeling) Islands	Yes	Yes	No
Colombia	No	Yes	No
Comoros	No	Yes	No
Congo (East and West)	No	Yes	No
Cook Islands	No	Yes	No
Costa Rica	No	Yes	No
Croatia	No	Yes	No	(d. m. yyyy. or d. mmmm yyyy.) See Date and time notation in Croatia for details on cases used.
Cuba	Yes	Yes	No
Curaçao	No	Yes	No
Cyprus	No	Yes	No	dd/mm/yyyy
Czech Republic	Yes	Yes	No	(d. m. yyyy or d. month yyyy)	ČSN ISO 8601
Denmark	Yes	Yes	No	Examples: Long date: 7. juni 1994. Long date with weekday: onsdag(,) den 21. december 1994. Numeric date: 1994-06-07 (The format dd.mm.(yy)yy is the traditional Danish date format. The international format yyyy-mm-dd or yyyymmdd is also accepted, though this format is not commonly used. The formats d. 'month name' yyyy and in handwriting d/m-yy or d/m yyyy are also acceptable.)	DS/ISO 8601:2005
Djibouti	Yes	Yes	No	Short format: dd/mm/yyyy (Day first, month number and year in left-to-right writing direction) in Afar, French and Somali ("d/m/yy" is a common alternative). Gregorian dates follow the same rules but tend to be written in the yyyy/m/d format (Day first, month number, and year in right-to-left writing direction) in Arabic language. Long format: d mmmm yyyy or mmmm dd, yyyy (Day first, full month name, and year or first full month name, day, and year, in left-to-right writing direction) in Afar, French and Somali and yyyy ،mmmm d (Day first, full month name, and year in right-to-left writing direction) in Arabic
Dominica	No	Yes	No
Dominican Republic	No	Yes	No
East Timor	No	Yes	No
Ecuador	No	Yes	No
Egypt	No	Yes	No
El Salvador	No	Yes	No
Equatorial Guinea	No	Yes	No	(dd/mm/yyyy or d mmmm yyyy) for French and Spanish
Eritrea	Yes	Yes	Template:Sometimes	Short format: dd/mm/yyyy for Afar, Bilen, English, Saho, Tigre and Tigrinya. Gregorian dates follow the same rules but tend to be written in the yyyy/m/d (Day first, month number and year in right-to-left writing direction) format in Arabic language. Long format: D MMMM YYYY (Day first, full month name, and year in left-to-right writing direction) for Bilen, English, Tigre and Tigrinya, YYYY ،MMMM D (Day first, full month name, and year in right-to-left writing direction) for Arabic and MMMM DD, YYYY (First full month name, day and year in left-to-right writing direction) for Afar and Saho
Estonia	Template:Sometimes	Yes	No	dd.mm.yyyy, d.m.(yy)yy or d. mmmm yyyy (mmmm may be substituted by Roman numerals). In more formal, international contexts yyyy-mm-dd is the preferred allowed format.
Eswatini	Yes	Yes	No	YMD (in Swati), DMY (in English)
Ethiopia	No	Yes	Template:Sometimes	(dd/mm/yyyy or dd mmmm yyyy) for Amharic, Tigrinya and Wolaytta (dd/mm/yyyy or mmmm dd, yyyy) for Afar, Oromo and Somali
Falkland Islands	No	Yes	No
Faroe Islands	No	Yes	No
Federated States of Micronesia	No	No	Yes
Finland	No	Yes	Template:Sometimes	Finnish: d.m.yyyy or in long format d. mmmm yyyy Inari Sami: mmmm d. p. yyyy Northern Sami: mmmm d. b. yyyy Skolt Sami: mmmm d. p. yyyy Swedish: d mmmm yyyy (Note: Month and year can be shortened)
Fiji	No	Yes	No
France	Yes	Yes	No	(dd/mm/yyyy) for Alsatian, Catalan, Corsican, French and Occitan (yyyy-mm-dd) for Breton, Basque and Interlingua	NF Z69-200
Template:Country data French Guiana	No	Yes	No
French Polynesia	No	Yes	No
Gabon	No	Yes	No
The Gambia	No	Yes	No
Georgia	No	Yes	No	(dd.mm.yyyy) (In Georgian calendar dates, century digits may be omitted, e.g., dd-mm-yy.)
Germany	Yes	Yes	No	The format dd.mm.yyyy using dots (which denote ordinal numbering) is the traditional German date format, and continues to be the most commonly used. In 1996, the international format yyyy-mm-dd was made the official date format in standardized contexts such as government, education, engineering and sciences. However, as it failed to establish itself, the traditional format (d)d.(m)m.(yy)yy was allowed again as an alternative in 2006 (except in areas where there is risk of ambiguity). The handwritten form d. mmmm yyyy is also accepted (compare DIN 5008). See Date and time notation in Europe.	DIN ISO 8601:2006-09, used in DIN 5008:2011-04 (see Datumsformat)
Ghana	Yes	Yes	Yes	(yyyy/mm/dd) for Akan (dd/mm/yyyy) (m/d/yyyy) for Ewe
Gibraltar	No	Yes	No
Greece	No	Yes	No	Short format: d/m/yyyy or rarely d-m-yyyy Long format: dddd, d mmmm, yyyy (month in genitive)	ELOT EN 28601
Greenland	No	Yes	Yes	Danish: d. mmmm yyyy Greenlandic: mmmm d.-at, yyyy
Grenada	No	Yes	No
Template:Country data Guadeloupe	No	Yes	No
Template:Country data Guam	No	No	Yes
Guatemala	No	Yes	No	Short format: dd/mm/yyyy Long format: d de mmmm de yyyy or dddd, d de mmmm de yyyy
Template:Country data Bailiwick of Guernsey	No	Yes	No
Guinea	Yes	Yes	Template:Sometimes	Short format: dd/mm/yyyy (Day first, month and year in left-to-right writing direction) in French and Fulah. Gregorian dates follow the same rules but tend to be written in yyyy/mm/dd (Day first, month number, and year in right-to-left writing direction) format in N'ko language. Long format: D MMMM YYYY (Day first, month and year in left-to-right writing direction) for French and Fulah and YYYY, DD MMMM (First full month name, day, and year in right-to-left writing direction) for N'ko
Guinea-Bissau	No	Yes	No
Guyana	No	Yes	No
Haiti	No	Yes	No
Hong Kong	Yes	Yes	Template:Rarely	(yy)yy年(m)m月(d)d日 (if without leading zeros) for Chinese and in British English, (d)d/(m)m/(yy)yy in short format. d mmmm yyyy (Casually many people use with commas: d mmmm, yyyy) in long format. Both expanded forms dd-mmmm-yyyy and mmmm-dd-yyyy are used interchangeably in Hong Kong, except the latter was more frequently used in media publications and commercial purpose, such as The Standard.
Honduras	No	Yes	No
Hungary	Yes	Template:Sometimes	No	yyyy. mm. (d)d. The year is written in Arabic numerals. The name of the month can be written out in full or abbreviated, or it can be indicated by Roman numerals or Arabic numerals. The day is written in Arabic numerals.	MSZ ISO 8601:2003
Iceland	No	Yes	No	(dd.mm.yyyy)	IST EN 28601:1992
India	Yes	Yes	Template:Sometimes	In India, the dd-mm-yyyy is the predominant short form of the numeric date usage. Almost all government documents need to be filled up in the dd-mm-yyyy format. An example of dd-mm-yyyy usage is the passport application form. Though not yet a common practice, the BIS (Bureau of Indian Standards) of the Government of India introduced the standard named "IS 7900:2001 (Revised in 2006) Data Elements And Interchange Formats – Information Interchange – Representation Of Dates And Times" which officially recommends use of the date format yyyy-mm-dd; for example, 2013-09-10, 20130910, or 2013 09 10 for the date 10 September 2013. Dates in the Bodo language are in mm/dd/yyyy. The majority of English-language newspapers and media publications in India use mmmm dd, yyyy.	IS 7900:2001
Indonesia	No	Yes	Template:Rarely	On English-written materials, Indonesians tend to use the M-D-Y but was more widely used in non-governmental contexts. English-language governmental and academic documents use DMY.
Iran	Yes	Yes	No	Short format: yyyy/mm/dd in Persian Calendar system ("yy/m/d" is a common alternative). Gregorian dates follow the same rules in Persian literature but tend to be written in the dd/mm/yyyy format in official English documents. Long format: YYYY MMMM D (Day first, full month name, and year in right-to-left writing direction)
Iraq	No	Yes	No	Short format: (dd/mm/yyyy)
Ireland	No	Yes	No	(dd-mm-yyyy). dd/mm/yyyy is also in common use	IS/EN 28601:1993
Template:Country data Isle of Man	No	Yes	No
Israel	No	Yes	No	The format dd.mm.yyyy using dots is the common format. dd/mm/yyyy is also in common use. The Jewish calendar is in limited use, mainly for Jewish holidays, and follows the DMY format.
Italy	No	Yes	No	(dd/mm/yyyy)	UNI EN 28601
Ivory Coast	No	Yes	No
Jamaica	Yes	Yes	No
Template:Country data Jan Mayen	No	Yes	No
Japan	Yes	No	No	Often in the form yyyy年mm月dd日; sometimes Japanese era year is used, e.g. 平成18年12月30日.	JIS X 0301:2002
Jersey	No	Yes	No
Jordan	No	Yes	No
Kazakhstan	Template:Sometimes	Yes	No	Short format: (yyyy.dd.mm) in Kazakh and (dd.mm.(yy)yy) in Russian Long format: yyyy 'ж'. d mmmm in Kazakh; d MMMM yyyy in Russian Full format in Kazakh: yyyy 'ж'. dd mmmm
Kenya	Yes	Yes	Yes	(yy/mm/dd) (dd/mm/yyyy) (m/d/yyyy) for Swahili
Kiribati	No	Yes	No
North Korea	Yes	No	No