<time>: The (Date) Time element

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since October 2017.

The <time> HTML element represents a specific period in time. It may include the datetime attribute to translate dates into machine-readable format, allowing for better search engine results or custom features such as reminders.

It may represent one of the following:

A time on a 24-hour clock.
A precise date in the Gregorian calendar (with optional time and timezone information).
A valid time duration.

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Attributes

Like all other HTML elements, this element supports the global attributes.

datetime: This attribute indicates the time and/or date of the element and must be in one of the formats described below.

Usage notes

This element is for presenting dates and times in a machine-readable format. For example, this can help a user agent offer to add an event to a user's calendar.

This element should not be used for dates prior to the introduction of the Gregorian calendar (due to complications in calculating those dates).

The datetime value (the machine-readable value of the datetime) is the value of the element's datetime attribute, which must be in the proper format (see below). If the element does not have a datetime attribute, it must not have any element descendants, and the datetime value is the element's child text content.

Valid datetime values

Description	Microsyntax	Examples
Valid month string	`YYYY-MM`	`2011-11`, `2013-05`
Valid date string	`YYYY-MM-DD`	`1887-12-01`
Valid yearless date string	`MM-DD`	`11-12`
Valid time string	`HH:MM` `HH:MM:SS` `HH:MM:SS.mmm`	`23:59` `12:15:47` `12:15:52.998`
Valid local date and time string	`YYYY-MM-DDHH:MM` `YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS` `YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS.mmm` `YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM` `YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS` `YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.mmm`	`2013-12-25 11:12` `1972-07-25 13:43:07` `1941-03-15 07:06:23.678` `2013-12-25T11:12` `1972-07-25T13:43:07` `1941-03-15T07:06:23.678`
Valid time-zone offset string	`Z` `+HHMM` `+HH:MM` `-HHMM` `-HH:MM`	`Z` `+0200` `+04:30` `-0300` `-08:00`
Valid global date and time string	Any combination of a valid local date and time string followed by a valid time-zone offset string	`2013-12-25 11:12+0200` `1972-07-25 13:43:07+04:30` `1941-03-15 07:06:23.678Z` `2013-12-25T11:12-08:00`
Valid week string	`YYYY-WWW`	`2013-W46`
Four or more ASCII digits	`YYYY`	`2013`, `0001`
Valid duration string	`PdDThHmMsS` `PdDThHmMs.XS PdDThHmMs.XXS PdDThHmMs.XXXS PThHmMsS PThHmMs.XS PThHmMs.XXS PThHmMs.XXXS ww dd hh mm ss`	`P12DT7H12M13S` `P12DT7H12M13.3S` `P12DT7H12M13.45S` `P12DT7H12M13.455S` `PT7H12M13S` `PT7H12M13.2S` `PT7H12M13.56S` `PT7H12M13.999S` `7d 5h 24m 13s`

Examples

Simple example

HTML

html

<p>The concert starts at <time datetime="2018-07-07T20:00:00">20:00</time>.</p>

Result

`datetime` example

HTML

html

<p>
  The concert took place on <time datetime="2001-05-15T19:00">May 15</time>.
</p>

Result

Technical summary

Content categories	Flow content, phrasing content, palpable content.
Permitted content	Phrasing content.
Tag omission	None, both the starting and ending tag are mandatory.
Permitted parents	Any element that accepts phrasing content.
Implicit ARIA role	`time`
Permitted ARIA roles	Any
DOM interface	`HTMLTimeElement`

Specifications

Specification
HTML Standard # the-time-element

Browser compatibility

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