: The (Date) Time element

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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.

{{EmbedInteractiveExample("pages/tabbed/time.html", "tabbed-shorter")}} 

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

Examples

Basic example

HTML

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

Result

{{EmbedLiveSample('Basic_example', 250, 80)}} 

datetime example

HTML

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

Result

{{EmbedLiveSample('datetime_example', 250, 80)}} 

Technical summary

Specifications

{{Specifications}} 

Browser compatibility

{{Compat}} 

See also

• The {{HTMLElement("data")}}  element, allowing to signal other kind of values.