Change WordPress’s site-wide date and time display under Settings → General. Choose a date and time format—or enter a custom PHP-style format—and save. Set the site timezone separately: it determines the local time WordPress uses, while the format controls how that time is presented.
Change the site date, time, or timezone
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Sign in with an administrator account and go to Settings → General.
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Under Timezone, choose a named city that follows the site’s local time rules, if one is available. If not, choose the appropriate UTC offset. Check the UTC and local-time preview.
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Under Date Format and Time Format, select a preset or choose Custom for either field.
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For a custom format, enter the relevant PHP date-format characters. Use the example preview to check the result, then click Save Changes.
The date and time format settings affect presentation; the timezone setting controls the local time WordPress calculates and displays. They solve different problems. WordPress describes Date Format as “The format in which to display dates on your site.” WordPress General Settings documentation.
Choose a preset or build a custom format
WordPress provides common formats, including F j, Y, Y-m-d, m/d/Y, d/m/Y, and d.m.Y, as well as a Custom option. The numeric formats can be ambiguous across regions: for example, 03/04/2026 may mean March 4 or 3 April. A month name or year-first format avoids that ambiguity. The d.m.Y preset was added in WordPress 6.8.0, according to the WordPress admin source.
Custom values use PHP date-format characters, not spreadsheet-style tokens such as YYYY or DD. For example, Y-m-d displays a four-digit year, month, and day with hyphens; d/m/Y displays day, month, and four-digit year with slashes.
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| Character | Meaning | Example use |
|---|---|---|
d / j |
Day of month, with / without a leading zero | d: 06; j: 6 |
D / l |
Abbreviated / full weekday name | D, F j, Y |
m / n |
Month number, with / without a leading zero | m: 11; n: 11 |
M / F |
Abbreviated / full month name | F j, Y |
Y / y |
Four-digit / two-digit year | Y: 2026 |
a / A |
Lowercase / uppercase am or pm | g:i a |
g / h |
12-hour clock, without / with a leading zero | g:i a or h:i a |
G / H |
24-hour clock, without / with a leading zero | H:i |
i / s |
Minutes / seconds | H:i:s |
T |
Timezone abbreviation | H:i T |
c / r / U |
ISO 8601 / RFC 2822 / Unix timestamp | Use when the output requires that representation |
Examples from the WordPress date and time formatting guide include F j, Y for “November 6, 2010,” F j, Y g:i a for “November 6, 2010 12:50 am,” and Y/m/d at g:i A for a date followed by the literal word “at” and a 12-hour time. Escape literal letters with a backslash; the guide notes that currently unused letters may gain meaning in future PHP versions.
Why dates may still look different
Dashboard dates do not necessarily follow the site display format
The Date Format and Time Format settings are intended for site output and theme designers, not for controlling dates in administrative screens. Post-management lists and the edit timestamp may continue to use dashboard locale or administrative conventions. WordPress General Settings documentation.
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A theme, plugin, widget, or block may set its own format
The global settings provide defaults, but code and individual components can pass a format of their own. The Date block can use the site default, while its block-level settings can change the format for that block. If a front-end date does not change, check the relevant theme, plugin, widget, or block settings. WordPress Date block documentation.
Changing the format does not correct the timezone
If an event or post appears at the wrong local time, review Settings → General → Timezone. Changing a date or time format only changes how the value looks; it does not change the timezone WordPress uses to calculate it.
Set a format in theme or plugin code
In templates, the_date() and the_time() use the configured defaults unless the code supplies a format argument. For example, the_time( 'l, F jS, Y' ) specifies a full weekday, month, day with ordinal suffix, and year. That explicit argument can override the global format.
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For localized date output in custom code, use wp_date(), which formats using the site locale and configured WordPress timezone:
wp_date( 'F j, Y' )
WordPress’s formatting guide says, “By default, these functions will display or return date and time in format as it is set in Administration > Settings > General.” For timezone-aware conversion behavior, see the WordPress developer reference for wp_date().
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