Calendar dates can be written in a wide variety of ways in English, and the choice often depends on formal or informal writing, personal style and whether you are writing British or American English. Whatever the format, in British English, dates are usually written in the order day – month – year, while in American English they are written month – day – year.
This article covers all the common ways to write dates for each region.
Writing Dates in British English
For British English, day followed by month followed by year, the 13th day of the month April, year 2014, might be written in full (in order of complexity):
- 13 April
- 13 April 2014
- 13th April 2014
- the 13th of April 2014
- the 13th of April, 2014,
These are all possible, and a matter of choice. The more complicated the style of date, the more formal it is.
In the later examples, the and of are optional, but if you do use them you must add both the and of; it would be incorrect to say only 13th of April or the 13th April.
In British English, commas are not necessary (although can be used to separate month an year, as a matter of style).
If you wish to add the name of the day, it should come before the date, and should either be separated by a comma or joined by the and of.
- Sunday, 13 April 2014
- Sunday the 13th of April, 2014
Writing Dates in American English
In American English, the month comes before the day, which means you cannot use of and rarely use ordinal numbers (adding st, nd, rd, th). Commas should also be used to separate the day and year, and again the name of the day should come at the beginning. The date should therefore be written:
- April 13
- April 13, 2014
- Sunday, April 13, 2014
April the 13th or April 13th are not incorrect, but are much less common now.
Numerical date formats
In both British and American English, the date can be written in abbreviated forms, either as a group of numbers (separated by hyphens, slashes or periods), or with the first few letters of the month. The date should be in day – month – year or month – day – year format depending on British or American use.
British Abbreviated Dates
- 13/04/14, 13.04.14, 13-04-14
- 13/04/2014, 13.04.2014, 13-04-2014
- 13Apr2014, 13-Apr-14
American Abbreviated Dates
- 04/13/14, 04.13.14, 04-13-14
- 04/13/2014, 04.13.2014, 04-13-2014
- Apr. 13, 2014
Year Before Month
In some circumstances, you may find the year comes before the month, then the day (a reverse of the standard British format). This is not common in English speaking countries, except in some technical texts.
Which style to choose?
Choosing which style you write the date in depends on how formal you wish the document to be, and how much space you have. However, there are only two things that are really important, whichever style you choose:
- Write the date in the correct format for that style
- Be consistent
And do not use different styles within the same document, unless you have a good reason to!
I hope you found this useful, and if you have any questions do ask in the comments below!
Best wishes dear friend.
Well done.
Thank you very much for your article
What does “Year before month” mean, I thought that it was month before day, the year is last when writing both types of dates.
Hi Bob, you’re absolutely right, thanks – Year Before Month that is an uncommon form and should be its own separate heading, not as part of the other lists. The formatting went odd in an update, I’ll change it now!
How do you write two consecutive dates over two different months in the UK.
For example, 27 June 2020 to 4 July 2020.
Hi Carylon,
This is one of those areas where the actual writing of the date will depend on the conventions shown in the article, but you have it right in your example, we’d present the date with whatever styles is consistent and connect two dates with ‘to’ or with a dash (27 June – 4 July). The year would be optional, unless there’s room for confusion.
What about when you want to write just the number and the day of the week? Thursday 13 is ok?
Hi Ivan, yes that’s fine. Generally the different conventions can be shortened without much complication.
Is it correct to write “Wednesday, 14th October 2020” in British English?
Hi Estelle, yes that’s something of a combination of the styles I listed but it would be acceptable. I would personally either use the ordinal ‘th’ with ‘the’ and ‘of’, or remove the ordinal ‘th’, but as long as you are consistent that style would be acceptable.
Thank you so much for your answer.
Rgds,
Estelle
You’re welcome, glad to help!
Hi Estelle, I’m glad you wrote this, because that is almost the same thing I was taught in school (some moons ago).
20th February, 2023
Was taught that we NEVER write the ‘of’ but it’s inserted in speech.
But we know languages evolve, with time.
Thank you, Mr Williams for this lesson ‘Up’ date.
thank you Sir. this was of great help to me.
Great job.
You’re welcome, glad to hear it helped!
Hi Phil, thank you for the very clear article. For my understanding: I learned american english as a foreing language starting back in 1983. I learned to use cardinal numbers e.g. April 13th, 2014. Just out of curiosity: was I taught incorrectly or did it change in between and I missed it?
Hi Renata,
Thank you. You’re not incorrect, no – as noted in the article, ordinal numbers may still be used in American English, it’s just not as common as it once was. So most likely the popularity of that style has decreased since you learnt it, but that doesn’t make it incorrect, it remains a style choice. And to be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised if it doesn’t become more popular again, as British English speakers may become more used to writing in the American style but keep the ordinal numbers from British English.
Phil
Is using a comma after mentioning a full date is okay in British english. (For eg. “On 23 April 2020, the Russian forces experimented with the alien tech.”
Hi Amit, yes that usage is perfectly acceptable. The comma usage depends on the sentence rather than the date, as such; in your example, the time comes at the front of a sentence as an adverbial so we would typically have a comma after it.
Thank you, Phil, for providing clarity on this.
YYYY-MM-DD is the ISO standard for dates, but I would not use it in prose. Also, the comma between the day name and date (for example, Saturday, 18 February 2023) is becoming, or already is, optional in British English. I only ever see it done as Saturday 18 February 2023.
The Times and the British tabloids (Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, The Sun, Daily Express) and many other people would disagree with you about what can constitute a correct format for dates in England.
Well, it’s not really a question of what the ‘correct’ format is, this post is aimed at highlighting the common conventions. For any publication (or indeed person) it is naturally a matter of preference, and those publications all maintain their own style guides – English is nothing if not adaptable, after all.
Hi, would you please advise how to write a range of dates in British English, eg. 02 – 15 September 2023 9am – 5pm. Thank you.
There are various ways this might be done, fitting the various formats, but yes you have the right idea that essentially you’re going to need to put a hyphen or dash between the numbers to show a range. You might put a dash at different points to show the full date but I’d say it’s generally going to be clearer and simpler to do it between the numbers rather than repeat the other details.