C# – Get the current date and time

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Use DateTime.Now to get the current date/time, like this:

var now = DateTime.Now;
Console.WriteLine($"Current local time: {now}");
Code language: C# (cs)

This outputs the system’s current date/time:

Current local time: 6/21/2022 3:45:42 PMCode language: plaintext (plaintext)

Note: By default, it uses the current culture’s date format (from the OS). This is showing the US date format – MM/dd/yyyy.

DateTime.Now is the local date/time from the system where the code is executing. Keep that in mind if you’re getting unexpected date/times. The first thing to check is the system’s date/time configuration (including the system’s time zone config).

Get the current UTC date/time

If you’re passing date/times strings around, it’s typically a great idea to use UTC or include the UTC offset.

  • Use DateTime.UtcNow to get the current UTC date/time.
  • Use DateTimeOffset.Now to get the local date/time with a UTC offset.
  • Use DateTime.Now.ToString(“o”) to get the current date/time in the ISO-8601 format. More on formatting in the next section.

Here’s an example of using these methods:

var utcNow = DateTime.UtcNow;
Console.WriteLine($"Current UTC time: {utcNow}");

var nowWithOffset = DateTimeOffset.Now;
Console.WriteLine($"Current time with offset: {nowWithOffset}");

var iso8601format = DateTime.Now.ToString("o");
Console.WriteLine($"Current time with ISO-8601 format: {iso8601format}");
Code language: C# (cs)

This outputs the following:

Current UTC time: 6/21/2022 7:57:48 PM

Current time with offset: 6/21/2022 3:57:48 PM -04:00

Current time with ISO-8601 format: 2022-06-21T15:57:48.0907270-04:00Code language: plaintext (plaintext)

It uses the time zone configuration from the system to get the current UTC offset (-04:00 in my case), and then uses this to figure out the current UTC time. To repeat, all of this is based on the system’s date/time configuration.

Note: If a time zone observes daylight savings time, the UTC offset changes based on the time of year. So don’t try to hardcode the offset.

Formatting the DateTime string

When you convert DateTime to a string, you can format it however you want. Here’s an example of using custom formats:

var date = DateTime.Now.ToString("yyyy-M-d");
Console.WriteLine($"Current date: {date}");

var time = DateTime.Now.ToString("h:mm tt");
Console.WriteLine($"Current time: {time}");
Code language: C# (cs)

Note: When you start to type in the format string, IntelliSense will show a full list of format specifiers to help you. You can also take a look at the official MSDN documentation.

This outputs the following:

Current date: 2022-6-21
Current time: 4:29 PMCode language: plaintext (plaintext)

There are also several helper methods for common formats. Here’s an example of using two helper methods:

var date = DateTime.Now.ToShortDateString();
Console.WriteLine($"Current date: {date}");

var time = DateTime.Now.ToShortTimeString();
Console.WriteLine($"Current time: {time}");
Code language: C# (cs)

This outputs the following:

Current date: 6/21/2022
Current time: 4:28 PMCode language: plaintext (plaintext)

Get just the time or just the date

Here’s an example of getting just the time component of the current date/time:

TimeSpan time = DateTime.Now.TimeOfDay;

Console.WriteLine($"Clock hours (24-h): {time.Hours}");
Console.WriteLine($"Hours since noon: {time.Hours - 12}");
Code language: C# (cs)

This outputs:

Clock hours (24-h): 16
Hours since noon: 4Code language: plaintext (plaintext)

You can’t really get “just the date”, but you can get the current date with the time zeroed out (set to 00:00:00), which allows you to compare it with other dates with the time zeroed out (such as dates from the database). Here’s an example:

var currentDate = DateTime.Now.Date;
Console.WriteLine(currentDate);

var futureDate = new DateTime(year: 2022, month: 12, day: 21);
Console.WriteLine($"Difference = {(futureDate - currentDate).TotalDays}");
Code language: C# (cs)

This outputs the following:

6/21/2022 12:00:00 AM
Difference = 183Code language: plaintext (plaintext)

If you had just used DateTime.Now and compared it with the 2022-12-21, it would have fractional days (182.xx) because they have different times. This is the reason for zeroing out the time, so that you can get whole day (or month/year) differences.

Note: In .NET 6, they added DateOnly and TimeOnly to try to simplify getting just the date or just the time. I’ll show the downside to those further below.

Get current time for a specific time zone

You can use the TimeZoneInfo class to convert your local time to a specified time zone. Here’s an example:

var localNow = DateTimeOffset.Now;
var usCentralTimeZone = TimeZoneInfo.FindSystemTimeZoneById("Central Standard Time");
var centralTimeNow = TimeZoneInfo.ConvertTime(localNow, usCentralTimeZone);

Console.WriteLine(centralTimeNow);
Code language: C# (cs)

This outputs the following:

6/21/2022 2:26:19 PM -05:00Code language: plaintext (plaintext)

If you don’t want the TimeZoneInfo object (from FindSystemZoneById()), you can use the shortcut approach:

var centralTimeNow = TimeZoneInfo.ConvertTimeBySystemTimeZoneId(DateTimeOffset.Now, "Central Standard Time");
Code language: C# (cs)

Find all time zone ids

If you’re not sure about the time zone id you want, you can find all time zone ids on your system like this:

foreach (var timezone in TimeZoneInfo.GetSystemTimeZones())
{
    Console.WriteLine(timezone.Id);
}
Code language: C# (cs)

On my system, this output about 150 time zone ids (too many to show here).

What about DateOnly and TimeOnly (.NET 6)?

In .NET 6, they added the DateOnly and TimeOnly types. In general, I wouldn’t suggest using these, because they don’t currently work with things such as serializing to JSON with the built-in System.Text.Json. Here’s an example:

var person = new Person()
{
    DateOfBirth = DateOnly.FromDateTime(DateTime.Now)
};

Console.WriteLine(System.Text.Json.JsonSerializer.Serialize(person));
Code language: C# (cs)

This throws the following exception, indicating that it can’t serialize a DateOnly property:

System.NotSupportedException: Serialization and deserialization of ‘System.DateOnly’ instances are not supported. Path: $.DateOfBirth.

Keep it simple and stick with DateTime, DateTimeOffset, and TimeSpan instead.

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