Date Format: Types, How to Write Correctly

Since you are here on this page I am assuming you are someone who might be confused on date format while filling a form, booking a flight, or writing an assignment. Don’t worry you are not alone and we have all Googled correct date format at least once in our lives.

Students aiming to study abroad must be well-versed with date format of their chosen destination in order to remain on time. There are many ways how people around the world write dates. Here are the three most common date formats used around the world-

• Day-Month-Year or dd-mm-yyyy like 27/09/2025 (used in India and most of Asia & Europe)
• Month-Day-Year or mm-dd-yyyy like 09/27/2025 (used in the US)
• Year-Month-Day or yyyy-mm-dd like 2025-09-27 (used in Japan and follows the ISO 8601 international standard)

Now let us be honest it is very easy to get confused especially when every country has its own system. But if you are someone who is planning to study abroad this is more than just a small mistake. Writing the wrong date on your application or visa form could actually delay things or could even get your form rejected.

Why Date Formats Even Matter?

Whether it is tracking deadlines, attending interviews, or submitting your project on time dates keep us in sync. But the way we write dates will change from one country to other and even from one organization to another. So while there isn’t exactly a “wrong” way to write a date but there is a preferred local way and following it avoids all that confusion.

For example India, UK, and most of Europe follow DD-MM-YYYY, but in US you use MM-DD-YYYY. So 03/04/2025 could mean 3rd April in India but March 3rd in the US. One small difference and it could mean two totally different dates.

Also read:

Universal ISO 8601 Date Format

If you want to avoid all confusion just use standard ISO 8601.
This was introduced in 1988 and was last updated in 2022. The format is a Gregorian format and is currently used in computers, data systems, and international communication. 

ISO 8601 recommends following date and time notations in use today- 'year, month, day, hour, minutes, seconds and milliseconds".

So you will write like 2025-02-02 (YYYY-MM-DD).

How Different Countries Write Dates?

1. India: We follow the British format DD/MM/YYYY (e.g., 02/02/2025). In official documents, you will see this everywhere. The long format is usually written as 02 February 2025.
2. UK: Same as India, but sometimes you’ll also see dots or slashes - like 05.01.2025 or 05/01/2025.
3. Europe: Mostly DD.MM.YYYY, but some European agencies have started using ISO 8601 for global consistency.
4. USA: Almost the opposite - MM-DD-YYYY (e.g., January 02, 2025). The confusion usually starts here, since Americans swap the month and day.

Understanding Parts of a Date Format

Arrangement of numbers, text, and separators makes a date.

1. DD is Day
2. MM - Month
3. YYYY - Year

So “2 February 2025” can be written as “02/02/2025” or “2025-02-02” depending on where you are. 

This was all about the correct date format, date format by country, and the ISO date format. If you have any doubts, feel free to drop your queries in the comments below.