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Date and Time Formats Around the World, Explained

Select a region to see how it writes dates and times.

United States

Dates are typically written month/day/year (MM/DD/YYYY), and time is usually shown in 12-hour format with AM/PM.

Korea and most of Europe

Dates are typically written day/month/year or year/month/day, and 24-hour time is widely used.

International Standard (ISO 8601)

The international standard format, written year-month-day (YYYY-MM-DD), avoids ambiguity and is widely adopted in computer systems.

United Kingdom

Dates are typically written day/month/year (DD/MM/YYYY), but, like the US, 12-hour time is also commonly used.

Japan

Dates are typically written year/month/day, and alongside the standard Western calendar year, dates are also commonly written using the emperor's era name.

02/03/2026 -- what date is that, exactly?

The same string of numbers can mean February 3rd in one country and March 2nd in another. To sidestep this kind of confusion, international documents increasingly favor the ISO 8601 standard, which always writes dates in year-month-day order.

Curious about converting world time zones, too?

If you regularly need to work out what time it is somewhere else, a world time zone converter is worth bookmarking alongside this guide.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does the US use month/day/year order?

The exact origin is not entirely clear, but one theory is that the spoken habit of saying a date as "March 2nd," naming the month first, carried over into how dates are written as well.

Which is more widely used, 24-hour or 12-hour time?

Globally, more countries use 24-hour time, but the US and some other English-speaking countries still commonly use 12-hour time with AM/PM in everyday conversation.