Date header

The HTTP Date request and response header contains the date and time at which the message originated.

Header typeRequest header, Response header
Forbidden request headerYes

Syntax

http
Date: <day-name>, <day> <month> <year> <hour>:<minute>:<second> GMT

Directives

<day-name>

One of Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, Sat, or Sun (case-sensitive).

<day>

2 digit day number, e.g., "04" or "23".

<month>

One of Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec (case sensitive).

<year>

4 digit year number, e.g., "1990" or "2016".

<hour>

2 digit hour number, e.g., "09" or "23".

<minute>

2 digit minute number, e.g., "04" or "59".

<second>

2 digit second number, e.g., "04" or "59".

GMT

Greenwich Mean Time. HTTP dates are always expressed in GMT, never in local time.

Examples

undefined

Response with a Date header

The following HTTP message is a successful 200 status, with a Date header showing the time the message originated. Other headers are omitted for brevity:

http
HTTP/1.1 200
Content-Type: text/html
Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2024 16:56:32 GMT

<html lang="en-US" …

Attempting to set the field value in JavaScript

The Date header is a Forbidden request header, so this code cannot set the message Date field:

js
fetch("https://httpbin.org/get", {
  headers: {
    Date: new Date().toUTCString(),
  },
});

Specifications

See also