Time Tools

Date Locale Converter

Render one instant in many locales and calendars, alongside the ISO 8601 form systems should exchange.

Start here Enter the date and time you want to inspect.

Date and timeRead the value in this zone

ISO 8601: 2026-08-15T09:22:00+00:00
ISO date only: 2026-08-15
UTC: 2026-08-15T09:22:00.000Z
Unix seconds: 1786785720

The same instant written in each locale
Locale	Numeric	Medium	Full
English (United Kingdom)	15/08/2026	15 Aug 2026	Saturday, 15 August 2026
English (United States)	08/15/2026	Aug 15, 2026	Saturday, August 15, 2026
English (Australia)	15/08/2026	15 Aug 2026	Saturday, 15 August 2026
English (Canada)	2026-08-15	Aug 15, 2026	Saturday, August 15, 2026
German (Germany)	15.08.2026	15.08.2026	Samstag, 15. August 2026
French (France)	15/08/2026	15 août 2026	samedi 15 août 2026
Spanish (Spain)	15/08/2026	15 ago 2026	sábado, 15 de agosto de 2026
Italian (Italy)	15/08/2026	15 ago 2026	sabato 15 agosto 2026
Dutch (Netherlands)	15-08-2026	15 aug 2026	zaterdag 15 augustus 2026
Portuguese (Brazil)	15/08/2026	15 de ago. de 2026	sábado, 15 de agosto de 2026
Swedish (Sweden)	2026-08-15	15 aug. 2026	lördag 15 augusti 2026
Polish (Poland)	15.08.2026	15 sie 2026	sobota, 15 sierpnia 2026
Russian (Russia)	15.08.2026	15 авг. 2026 г.	суббота, 15 августа 2026 г.
Turkish (Turkey)	15.08.2026	15 Ağu 2026	15 Ağustos 2026 Cumartesi
Arabic (Egypt)	١٥‏/٠٨‏/٢٠٢٦	١٥‏/٠٨‏/٢٠٢٦	السبت، ١٥ أغسطس ٢٠٢٦
Hebrew (Israel)	15.08.2026	15 באוג׳ 2026	יום שבת, 15 באוגוסט 2026
Hindi (India)	15/08/2026	15 अग॰ 2026	शनिवार, 15 अगस्त 2026
Chinese (Simplified)	2026/08/15	2026年8月15日	2026年8月15日星期六
Chinese (Traditional)	2026/08/15	2026年8月15日	2026年8月15日星期六
Japanese (Japan)	2026/08/15	2026/08/15	2026年8月15日土曜日
Korean (Korea)	2026. 08. 15.	2026. 8. 15.	2026년 8월 15일 토요일
Thai (Thailand)	15/08/2569	15 ส.ค. 2569	วันเสาร์ที่ 15 สิงหาคม พ.ศ. 2569
Persian (Iran)	۱۴۰۵/۰۵/۲۴	۲۴ مرداد ۱۴۰۵	۱۴۰۵ مرداد ۲۴, شنبه

Understand the format

How Date Locale Converter works

The date 03/04/2026 is 3 April in London and 4 March in New York. That single ambiguity is why ISO 8601 exists, and why numeric dates should never cross a system boundary.

The same digits, two different days

Most of the world writes day before month. The United States writes month before day. Several countries, and every sensible data format, write year first. So a numeric date such as 03/04/2026 is genuinely ambiguous: it means 3 April to most readers and 4 March to an American one, with no way to tell which was intended from the digits alone.

This matters far beyond presentation. Import a CSV of numeric dates from one region into a system configured for another and eleven months of every year will silently parse to the wrong day, while the twelfth (13th onwards) throws an error. The errors are the lucky part, because they reveal the problem; the silent misreads are the ones that reach a report.

ISO 8601 is the answer for data

ISO 8601 writes the date largest unit first, 2026-04-03, and a full instant as 2026-04-03T14:30:00+01:00. It is unambiguous in every locale, it sorts correctly as plain text, and it is what RFC 3339 profiles for use on the internet. Every API, log line, filename, and database column should use it.

Locale formatting is for display only, at the very last moment, using the reader preferences. The rule that keeps systems sane: ISO in, ISO through, ISO out, and locale rendering only in the user interface.

Not every calendar is Gregorian

Locale is more than punctuation. Persian locales render dates in the Solar Hijri calendar, so April 2026 appears as 1405 with entirely different month names. Arabic locales may use Arabic-Indic digits. Thai locales commonly use the Buddhist era, which is 543 years ahead. Japanese locales can render era names such as Reiwa.

The table on this page shows those renderings side by side, which is worth seeing once: it makes clear that formatting a date is a translation, not a rearrangement of digits, and that a string like "1405/01/14" is the same instant as "2026-04-03".

Step by step

How to use Date Locale Converter

Enter the date and time you want to inspect.
Choose the time zone the value should be read in, since the calendar date depends on it.
Compare the numeric column across locales: those are the forms that get misread.
Copy the ISO 8601 value for anything that will be stored, logged, or sent to another system.

Formatting happens in your browser through the Intl APIs. The date you enter is not transmitted, and no locale preference is recorded.

Worked examples

Date Locale Converter examples explained

One instant, four countries

Input

3 April 2026, 14:30, Europe/London

Result

en-GB  03/04/2026
en-US  04/03/2026
de-DE  03.04.2026
ja-JP  2026/04/03

The British and American numeric forms are the same digits in a different order, which is exactly how a date gets imported as the wrong day.

A different calendar entirely

Input

The same instant in fa-IR

Result

1405/01/14

The Persian locale uses the Solar Hijri calendar. This is one instant rendered two ways, not two dates.

Reference

How the same date is written around the world

How the same date is written around the world
Locale	Numeric	Order	Note
en-GB	03/04/2026	Day, month, year	Most of Europe and the Commonwealth.
en-US	04/03/2026	Month, day, year	The United States, and almost nowhere else.
de-DE	03.04.2026	Day, month, year	Full stops rather than slashes.
ja-JP	2026/04/03	Year, month, day	Big-endian, and unambiguous.
fa-IR	1405/01/14	Solar Hijri calendar	A different calendar, not a different format.
ISO 8601	2026-04-03	Year, month, day	The one to store and exchange.

Practical Guide

How teams use Date Locale Converter

Common use cases

Work out how a date in a spreadsheet or export was meant to be read.
Check how your product will render a date for customers in another country.
Convert an ambiguous numeric date into ISO 8601 before importing it.
Show a colleague why a numeric date column caused an import to go wrong.

Checks before trusting the result

The calendar date depends on the time zone, so set the zone before reading the result.
Use ISO 8601 for storage and transport; use locale formatting only for display.
Remember that some locales change the calendar system, not just the separators.

Troubleshooting

Common mistakes and how to fix them

Exchanging numeric dates such as 03/04/2026 between systems.: Send ISO 8601. A numeric date is ambiguous for the eleven days of each month below the thirteenth.
Storing a formatted date string in the database.: Store a timestamp or an ISO string and format on the way out. A stored display string cannot be sorted, compared, or reformatted.
Assuming a locale only changes separators.: Persian, Thai, and Japanese locales can change the calendar and the era. The year itself may be different.
Guessing the locale from the language alone.: en-GB and en-US are both English and disagree about date order. Use the full locale tag.

FAQ

Date Locale Converter questions, answered

Why is 03/04/2026 ambiguous?

Because most countries read it as 3 April and the United States reads it as 4 March. Nothing in the string says which, so any system exchanging numeric dates is guessing.

What format should I use in an API?

ISO 8601, as profiled by RFC 3339: 2026-04-03 for a date, 2026-04-03T14:30:00+01:00 for an instant. It is unambiguous and sorts as text.

Why does the date change when I change the time zone?

Because a single instant falls on different calendar dates around the world. Late evening in London is already tomorrow in Sydney.

Why does one locale show a completely different year?

It is using a different calendar. Persian locales use the Solar Hijri calendar and Thai locales often use the Buddhist era, which runs 543 years ahead of the Gregorian one.

Where do the formats come from?

From the Unicode CLDR data built into your browser through the Intl APIs, which is the same data most operating systems and languages use.

Go deeper

Specifications and guides

Unix Time, Time Zones, and Expiry Bugs — Why tokens expire immediately, jobs run twice a year at the wrong hour, and two people see different dates for one record.