Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global objects/Date/toLocaleDateString

The toLocaleDateString() method returns a string with a language sensitive representation of the date portion of this date. The new locales and options arguments let applications specify the language whose formatting conventions should be used and allow to customize the behavior of the function. In older implementations, which ignore the locales and options arguments, the locale used and the form of the string returned are entirely implementation dependent.

Syntax

dateObj.toLocaleDateString([locales[, options]])

Parameters

The locales and options arguments customize the behavior of the function and let applications specify the language whose formatting conventions should be used. In implementations, which ignore the locales and options arguments, the locale used and the form of the string returned are entirely implementation dependent.

See the Intl.DateTimeFormat() constructor for details on these parameters and how to use them.

The default value for each date-time component property is undefined, but if the weekday, year, month, day properties are all undefined, then year, month, and day are assumed to be "numeric".

Return value

A string representing the date portion of the given Date instance according to language-specific conventions.

Performance

When formatting large numbers of dates, it is better to create an Intl.DateTimeFormat object and use the function provided by its format property.

Examples

Using toLocaleDateString()

In basic use without specifying a locale, a formatted string in the default locale and with default options is returned.

var date = new Date(Date.UTC(2012, 11, 12, 3, 0, 0));

// toLocaleDateString() without arguments depends on the implementation,
// the default locale, and the default time zone
console.log(date.toLocaleDateString());
// → "12/11/2012" if run in en-US locale with time zone America/Los_Angeles

Checking for support for locales and options arguments

The locales and options arguments are not supported in all browsers yet. To check whether an implementation supports them already, you can use the requirement that illegal language tags are rejected with a RangeError exception:

function toLocaleDateStringSupportsLocales() {
  try {
    new Date().toLocaleDateString('i');
  } catch (e) {
    return e.name !== 'RangeError';
  }
  return true;
}

Using locales

This example shows some of the variations in localized date formats. In order to get the format of the language used in the user interface of your application, make sure to specify that language (and possibly some fallback languages) using the locales argument:

var date = new Date(Date.UTC(2012, 11, 20, 3, 0, 0));

// formats below assume the local time zone of the locale;
// America/Los_Angeles for the US

// US English uses month-day-year order
console.log(date.toLocaleDateString('en-US'));
// → "12/19/2012"

// British English uses day-month-year order
console.log(date.toLocaleDateString('en-GB'));
// → "20/12/2012"

// Korean uses year-month-day order
console.log(date.toLocaleDateString('ko-KR'));
// → "2012. 12. 20."

// Event for Persian, It's hard to manually convert date to Solar Hijri
console.log(date.toLocaleDateString('fa-IR'));
// → "۱۳۹۱/۹/۳۰"

// Arabic in most Arabic speaking countries uses real Arabic digits
console.log(date.toLocaleDateString('ar-EG'));
// → "٢٠‏/١٢‏/٢٠١٢"

// for Japanese, applications may want to use the Japanese calendar,
// where 2012 was the year 24 of the Heisei era
console.log(date.toLocaleDateString('ja-JP-u-ca-japanese'));
// → "24/12/20"

// when requesting a language that may not be supported, such as
// Balinese, include a fallback language, in this case Indonesian
console.log(date.toLocaleDateString(['ban', 'id']));
// → "20/12/2012"

Using options

The results provided by toLocaleDateString() can be customized using the options argument:

var date = new Date(Date.UTC(2012, 11, 20, 3, 0, 0));

// request a weekday along with a long date
var options = { weekday: 'long', year: 'numeric', month: 'long', day: 'numeric' };
console.log(date.toLocaleDateString('de-DE', options));
// → "Donnerstag, 20. Dezember 2012"

// an application may want to use UTC and make that visible
options.timeZone = 'UTC';
options.timeZoneName = 'short';
console.log(date.toLocaleDateString('en-US', options));
// → "Thursday, December 20, 2012, UTC"

Specifications

Specification
ECMAScript (ECMA-262)The definition of 'Date.prototype.toLocaleDateString' in that specification.
ECMAScript Internationalization API (ECMA-402)The definition of 'Date.prototype.toLocaleDateString' in that specification.

Browser compatibility

Update compatibility data on GitHub

	Desktop						Mobile						Server
	Chrome	Edge	Firefox	Internet Explorer	Opera	Safari	Android webview	Chrome for Android	Firefox for Android	Opera for Android	Safari on iOS	Samsung Internet	Node.js
`toLocaleDateString`	Chrome Full support 1	Edge Full support 12	Firefox Full support 1	IE Full support 5.5	Opera Full support 5	Safari Full support 1	WebView Android Full support 1	Chrome Android Full support 18	Firefox Android Full support 4	Opera Android Full support 10.1	Safari iOS Full support 1	Samsung Internet Android Full support 1.0	nodejs Full support 0.1.100
IANA time zone names in `timeZone` option	Chrome Full support 24	Edge Full support 14	Firefox Full support 52	IE No support No	Opera Full support 15	Safari Full support 6.1	WebView Android Full support 4.4	Chrome Android Full support 25	Firefox Android No support No	Opera Android Full support 14	Safari iOS Full support 7	Samsung Internet Android Full support 1.5	nodejs Full support 0.12
`locales`	Chrome Full support 24	Edge Full support 12	Firefox Full support 29	IE Full support 11	Opera Full support 15	Safari Full support 10	WebView Android Full support 4.4	Chrome Android Full support 25	Firefox Android Full support 56	Opera Android Full support 14	Safari iOS Full support 10	Samsung Internet Android Full support 1.5	nodejs Full support 13.0.0 Full support 13.0.0 Partial support 0.12 Notes' Notes' Before version 13.0.0, only the locale data for `en-US` is available by default. When other locales are specified, the function silently falls back to `en-US`. To make full ICU (locale) data available for versions prior to 13, see Node.js documentation on the `--with-intl` option and how to provide the data.
`options`	Chrome Full support 24	Edge Full support 12	Firefox Full support 29	IE Full support 11	Opera Full support 15	Safari Full support 10	WebView Android Full support 4.4	Chrome Android Full support 25	Firefox Android Full support 56	Opera Android Full support 14	Safari iOS Full support 10	Samsung Internet Android Full support 1.5	nodejs Full support 0.12

Legend

Full support: Full support
No support: No support
See implementation notes.': See implementation notes.