<input> elements of type datetime-local create input controls that let the user easily enter both a date and a time, including the year, month, and day as well as the time in hours and minutes.

The control's UI varies in general from browser to browser. In browsers with no support, these degrade gracefully to simple <input type="text"> controls.

The control is intended to represent a local date and time, not necessarily the user's local date and time. In other words, the input allows any valid combination of year, month, day, hour, and minute—even if such a combination is invalid in the user's local time zone (such as the one hour within a daylight saving time spring-forward transition gap).

A string representing the value of the date entered into the input. The format of the date and time value used by this input type is described in Local date and time strings.

You can set a default value for the input by including a date and time inside the value attribute, like so:

<label for="party">Enter a date and time for your party booking:</label>
<input
  id="party"
  type="datetime-local"
  name="partydate"
  value="2017-06-01T08:30" />

One thing to note is that the displayed date and time formats differ from the actual value; the displayed date and time are formatted according to the user's locale as reported by their operating system, whereas the date/time value is always formatted YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm. When the above value is submitted to the server, for example, it will look like partydate=2024-06-01T08:30.

You can also get and set the date value in JavaScript using the HTMLInputElement value property, for example:

const dateControl = document.querySelector('input[type="datetime-local"]');
dateControl.value = "2017-06-01T08:30";

In addition to the attributes common to all <input> elements, datetime-local inputs offer the following attributes.

The latest date and time to accept. If the value entered into the element is later than this timestamp, the element fails constraint validation. If the value of the max attribute isn't a valid string that follows the format YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm, then the element has no maximum value.

This value must specify a date string later than or equal to the one specified by the min attribute.

The earliest date and time to accept; timestamps earlier than this will cause the element to fail constraint validation. If the value of the min attribute isn't a valid string that follows the format YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm, then the element has no minimum value.

This value must specify a date string earlier than or equal to the one specified by the max attribute.

The step attribute is a number that specifies the granularity that the value must adhere to, or the special value any, which is described below. Only values which are equal to the basis for stepping (min if specified, value otherwise, and an appropriate default value if neither of those is provided) are valid.

A string value of any means that no stepping is implied, and any value is allowed (barring other constraints, such as min and max).

For datetime-local inputs, the value of step is given in seconds, with a scaling factor of 1000 (since the underlying numeric value is in milliseconds). The default value of step is 60, indicating 60 seconds (or 1 minute, or 60,000 milliseconds).

At this time, it's unclear what a value of any means for step when used with datetime-local inputs. This will be updated as soon as that information is determined.

Date/time inputs are convenient for the developer; they provide an easy UI for choosing dates and times, and they normalize the data format sent to the server, regardless of the user's locale. However, it is important to consider your users. Don't require your users to enter data that is not needed for your app to function.

<input type="datetime-local"> doesn't support form control sizing attributes such as size. You'll have to resort to CSS for customizing the sizes of these elements.

One thing the datetime-local input type doesn't provide is a way to set the time zone and/or locale of the date/time control. This was available in the datetime input type, but this type is now obsolete, having been removed from the spec. The main reasons why this was removed are a lack of implementation in browsers and concerns over the user interface/experience. It is easier to just have a control (or controls) for setting the date/time and then deal with the locale in a separate control.

For example, if you are creating a system where the user is likely to already be logged in, with their locale already set, you could provide the timezone in a hidden input type. For example:

<input type="hidden" id="timezone" name="timezone" value="-08:00" />

On the other hand, if you were required to allow the user to enter a time zone along with a date/time input, you could have a <select> element to enable the user to set the right time zone by choosing a particular location from among a set of locations:

<select name="timezone" id="timezone">
  <option value="Pacific/Kwajalein">Eniwetok, Kwajalein</option>
  <option value="Pacific/Midway">Midway Island, Samoa</option>
  <option value="Pacific/Honolulu">Hawaii</option>
  <option value="Pacific/Marquesas">Taiohae</option>
  <!-- and so on -->
</select>

In either case, the date/time and time zone values would be submitted to the server as separate data points, and then you'd need to store them appropriately in the database on the server-side.

By default, <input type="datetime-local"> does not apply any validation to entered values. The UI implementations generally don't let you enter anything that isn't a date/time — which is helpful — but a user might still fill in no value and submit, or enter an invalid date and/or time (e.g. the 32nd of April).

You can use min and max to restrict the available dates (see Setting maximum and minimum dates), and you can use the required attribute to make filling in the date/time mandatory. As a result, supporting browsers will display an error if you try to submit a date that is outside the set bounds or an empty date field.

Let's look at an example; here we've set minimum and maximum date/time values, and also made the field required:

<form>
  <div>
    <label for="party">
      Choose your preferred party date and time (required, June 1st 8.30am to
      June 30th 4.30pm):
    </label>
    <input
      id="party"
      type="datetime-local"
      name="partydate"
      min="2017-06-01T08:30"
      max="2017-06-30T16:30"
      required />
    <span class="validity"></span>
  </div>
  <div>
    <input type="submit" value="Book party!" />
  </div>
</form>

If you try to submit the form with an incomplete date (or with a date outside the set bounds), the browser displays an error. Try playing with the example now:

Here's the CSS used in the above example. Here we make use of the :valid and :invalid CSS properties to style the input based on whether the current value is valid. We put the icons on a <span> next to the input.

div {
  margin-bottom: 10px;
  display: flex;
  align-items: center;
}

label {
  display: inline-block;
  width: 300px;
}

input:invalid + span::after {
  content: "✖";
  padding-left: 5px;
}

input:valid + span::after {
  content: "✓";
  padding-left: 5px;
}

The simplest use of <input type="datetime-local"> involves a basic <input> and <label> element combination, as seen below:

<form>
  <label for="party">Enter a date and time for your party booking:</label>
  <input id="party" type="datetime-local" name="partydate" />
</form>

You can use the min and max attributes to restrict the dates/times that can be chosen by the user. In the following example, we are setting a minimum datetime of 2024-06-01T08:30 and a maximum datetime of 2024-06-30T16:30:

<form>
  <label for="party">Enter a date and time for your party booking:</label>
  <input
    id="party"
    type="datetime-local"
    name="partydate"
    min="2024-06-01T08:30"
    max="2024-06-30T16:30" />
</form>

Only days in June 2024 can be selected. Depending on what browser you are using, times outside the specified values might not be selectable. In other browsers, invalid dates and times are selectable but will match :invalid and :out-of-range and will fail validation.

In some browsers (Chrome and Edge), only the "days" part of the date value will be editable, and dates outside June can't be scrolled. In others (Safari), the date picker will appear to allow any date, but the value will be clamped to the valid range when a date is selected.

The valid range included all times between the min and max values; the time of day is only constrained on the first and last dates in the range.

• The generic <input> element and the interface used to manipulate it, HTMLInputElement
• <input type="date"> and <input type="time">
• Date and time formats used in HTML
• Date and Time picker tutorial
• Compatibility of CSS properties