Table of Contents
About
The HTTP Date request and response header contains the date and time at which the message originated1.
Characteristics
See Forbidden request header, HTTP request headers HTTP response headers,
| Header type | Request header, Response header |
|---|---|
| Forbidden request header | Yes |
Syntax
Date: <day-name>, <day> <month> <year> <hour>:<minute>:<second> GMT
Directives
| Directive | Example |
|---|---|
<day-name> | One of Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, Sat, 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
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/1.1 200
Content-Type: text/html
Date: Sun, 11 May 2025 06:42:00 GMT
<html lang="en-GB"...
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:
fetch("https://httpbin.org/get", {
headers: {
Date: new Date().toUTCString(),
},
});
Anki
Links
References
MDN. “Date header”. Available at: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Reference/Headers/Date. (Accessed: ). ↩︎