Template:Date

5 December 2025

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Description

Converts almost any reasonable date representation into a properly formatted date according a specific date format (MDY, DMY, ISO, etc.).

Template parameters

Parameter		Description	Type	Status
Input date	1	The date to format. It understands all formats detailed on the documentation. Example {{Date|2020-09-20}}	String	required
Output format	2	The format in which the date will be displayed. Suggested values dmy, mdy, ymd, iso Default dmy Example {{Date|2020-09-20|mdy}}	String	optional
Force year linking	3	If you want to link the year to its article. (nobody uses this) Suggested values y Example {{Date|2020-09-20|3=y}}	String	optional

Supported input formats

Input example	What the template understands it as	Notes / typical use case
2020-09-20	Full ISO date (yyyy-mm-dd)	Most common modern format
20200920	Compact ISO / ymd numeric	Widely used in templates and databases
2020/09/20	ISO with slashes	Accepted variant
2020-9-20	Single-digit month/day (no leading zero)	Works perfectly
20200920143045	14-digit timestamp (yyyymmddhhmmss)	Auto-detected as full timestamp
20 September 2020	Full natural DMY	Classic Wikipedia style
September 20, 2020	Full natural MDY	American style
20 Sep 2020	Abbreviated month DMY	Also accepted
Sep 20, 2020	Abbreviated month MDY	Also accepted
20 September	Day + month (no year) → 20 September 2020	Assumes current or context year
September 2020	Month + year only → September 2020
2020-09	Year-month (yyyy-mm) → September 2020
202009	Year-month compact → September 2020
September 20	Month + day (no year) → 20 September (in current year)
2020	Year only → 2020
2020-09-20T14:30:45Z	ISO 8601 with time (ignored)	Date part still parsed correctly
{{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{CURRENTDAY}}, {{CURRENTYEAR}}	Wiki variables	Works when the template is rendered

Invalid / rejected inputs (output nothing or “none”)

• nonsense
• 32 September 2020
• February 30
• 2020-13-05
• 0000-00-00
• (very old dates before ~1000 CE are sometimes suppressed on purpose)

Supported output formats

Value	Name	Example output	Notes
(leave blank)	Default	20 September 2020	Defaults to dmy
dmy	Day Month Year	20 September 2020	Standard unlinked British/Australian style
mdy	Month Day, Year	September 20, 2020	Standard unlinked American style
ymd	Year Month Day	2020 September 20	Rare, used in some East-Asian contexts
iso	ISO 8601	2020-09-20	Machine-readable
asis	As-is	(whatever you typed)	No formatting at all
none	Suppress output	(nothing)	Returns nothing