Date and Time Formats

We support the input of date and time in various formats when given in manual time stamp entry, in CSV imports or in our API.

Examples

Examples of valid date/time formats are

2020-12-31 9:30         time zone as defined in the time series
31.12.2020 9:30:45 UTC
12/31/2020 9:30pm
1/1/2000                00:00 assumed
2020-12-31T12:30:00Z    ISO 8601

We recommend to use UTC (either explicitly or with the Z appended), because local time zones have problems with daylight saving time. For example

2025-10-26 02:30:00 Europe/Paris

is ambiguous, as this time happened twice, once in summer time and once in standard time. We assume the first occurrence in such cases, but there in no way to specify the second occurrence in that format.

Date formats

All month and day entries can be one or two digits.
For example 2023-4-1 is valid and so is 3.11.1967 and 4/25/2017.

The year must be between -100,000 and 100,000. However, only the format YYYY-MM-DD can be used for negative years and for years needing 5 digits or more. Additionally, all years must not be written with less than 4 digits. You have to use leading zeros if necessary. For example

04/10/11
15.04.22023
15-04--2023

is invalid. Use instead

04/10/0011
22023-04-15
-2023-04-15

Time formats

18:14:30
18:14               assuming 18:14:00
04:14:30 PM
04:14 am

The hour can be one digit here, but minutes and seconds need two digits. AM/PM can be in uppercase or lowercase.
You can omit the time completely, in which case the first instant of the day (midnight) is assumed.

Time zones

All time formats without a time zone assume local time as defined by the time series. You can, however, explicitly specify a time zone in several ways. You can add a local time zone name, for example

2023-04-15 18:14:30 Europe/Paris
04/15/2023 04:14:30pm America/Indiana/Vincennes

You have two ways to specify an unambiguous time. You can explicitly add the time difference to UTC in the form

18:14:30+02:00
04:14:30 PM-2:00

or you can give the time in UTC, either by adding UTC or GMT as time zone, or by adding a Z at the end.

18:14:30 GMT
18:14:30Z

Please note that other commonly used time zone abbreviations are not allowed, because they can be ambiguous. For example CST can stand for Central Standard Time (UTC -6) in America, for China Standard Time (UTC +8) in China, for Cuba Standard Time (UTC -5) in Cuba or for Central Standard Time (UTC +9:30) in Australia.