Check if a Date is in the Future using JavaScript

Check if a Date is in the Future using JavaScript #

To check if a date is in the future:

1. Use the Date() constructor to get the current date.
2. Optionally set the time of the current date to the last millisecond.
3. Check if the date is greater than the current date.

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function isInTheFuture(date) {
  const today = new Date();

  // 👇️ OPTIONAL!
  // This line sets the time of the current date to the
  // last millisecond, so the comparison returns `true` only if
  // date is at least tomorrow
  today.setHours(23, 59, 59, 998);

  return date > today;
}

const tomorrow = new Date();
tomorrow.setDate(tomorrow.getDate() + 1);

console.log(isInTheFuture(tomorrow)); // 👉️ true

console.log(isInTheFuture(new Date('2021-01-25'))); // 👉️ false

We created a reusable function that takes a DAte object as a parameter and checks if the date is in the future.

The first thing we did is use the Date() constructor to create a Date object that represents the current date.

The next line uses the setHours method to set the hour, minutes, seconds and milliseconds of the date to the last millisecond of the current date.

This line is optional and enables us to check if the passed in Date is at least tomorrow's date.

Here is the same example without setting the hour, minutes, seconds and milliseconds to the last millisecond of the current date.

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function isInTheFuture(date) {
  const today = new Date();

  return date > today;
}

const oneHourInTheFuture = new Date();
oneHourInTheFuture.setHours(oneHourInTheFuture.getHours() + 1);

console.log(isInTheFuture(oneHourInTheFuture)); // 👉️ true

console.log(isInTheFuture(new Date('2021-01-25'))); // 👉️ false

We are able to compare the dates because under the hood each date stores a timestamp - the number of milliseconds elapsed between the 1st of January 1970 and the given date.

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const date = new Date('2022-10-26');

// 👇️ 1666742400000
console.log(date.getTime());