How to Format a Date as DD/MM/YYYY in JavaScript

# Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Format a Date as DD/MM/YYYY in JavaScript
3. Format a Date as DD/MM/YYYY using date-fns
4. Format a Date as DD/MM/YYYY using moment.js

# Introduction

If you just need a quick and short solution instead of a solid, reusable function, use the following one-liner.

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const date = new Date();

// ✅ DD/MM/YYYY
const result1 = new Date().toLocaleDateString('en-GB');
console.log(result1); // 👉️ 24/07/2023

The code can also be tweaked to include the time.

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const date = new Date();

const result2 = new Date().toLocaleString('en-GB', {
  hour12: false,
});
console.log(result2); // 👉️ 24/07/2023, 11:47:44

We used the en-GB locale in a hacky way to format the date as DD/MM/YYYY.

Alternatively, you can define a reusable function that works in a more predictable manner.

# Format a Date as DD/MM/YYYY in JavaScript

To format a date as DD/MM/YYYY:

1. Use the getDate(), getMonth() and getFullYear() methods to get the day, month and year of the date.
2. Add a leading zero to the day and month digits if the value is less than 10.
3. Add the results to an array and join them with a forward slash separator.

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function padTo2Digits(num) {
  return num.toString().padStart(2, '0');
}

function formatDate(date) {
  return [
    padTo2Digits(date.getDate()),
    padTo2Digits(date.getMonth() + 1),
    date.getFullYear(),
  ].join('/');
}

// 👇️ 24/07/2023 (DD/MM/YYYY)
console.log(formatDate(new Date()));

//  👇️️ 24/07/2027 (DD/MM/YYYY)
console.log(formatDate(new Date(2027, 6, 24)));

The padTo2Digits function takes care of adding a leading zero if the month and day values only contain a single digit (are less than 10).

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function padTo2Digits(num) {
  return num.toString().padStart(2, '0');
}

console.log(padTo2Digits(2)); // 👉️ '02'
console.log(padTo2Digits(6)); // 👉️ '06'
console.log(padTo2Digits(10)); // 👉️ '10'
console.log(padTo2Digits(24)); // 👉️ '24'

We want to make sure that the values for the month and day are always consistently formatted, so we used the String.padStart method.

The arguments we passed to the padStart() method are:

1. the total length of the string
2. the pad character (0 in our case)

The next function we created is the one that formats a date as DD/MM/YYYY.

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// ✅ format date as DD/MM/YYYY
function formatDate(date) {
  return [
    padTo2Digits(date.getDate()),
    padTo2Digits(date.getMonth() + 1),
    date.getFullYear(),
  ].join('/');
}

function padTo2Digits(num) {
  return num.toString().padStart(2, '0');
}

The function uses the following 3 methods on the Date object:

• Date.getDate - returns an integer between 1 and 31 representing the day of the month for a specific date.

• Date.getMonth - returns an integer between 0 (January) and 11 (December) and represents the month of the given date. Yes, unfortunately, the getMonth method is off by 1.

• Date.getFullYear - returns a four-digit number that represents the year of the given date.

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// 👇️ May 19th 2025
console.log(new Date(2025, 4, 19));

// 👇️ June 19th 2025
console.log(new Date(2025, 5, 19));

// 👇️ July 19th 2025
console.log(new Date(2025, 6, 19));

The getMonth() method returns a zero-based value, so we have to add 1 to get the expected result.

The last step is to group the day, month and year into an array and format them as DD/MM/YYYY using Array.join().

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console.log(['28', '06', '2027'].join('/')); // 👉️ '28/06/2027'
console.log(['16', '09', '2026'].join('/')); // 👉️ '16/09/2026'

The Array.join() method concatenates all of the elements in an array using a separator.

You can extract the logic into a reusable function to not have to remember that the getMonth method returns a zero-based value.

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function padTo2Digits(num) {
  return num.toString().padStart(2, '0');
}

function formatDate(date) {
  return [
    padTo2Digits(date.getDate()),
    padTo2Digits(date.getMonth() + 1),
    date.getFullYear(),
  ].join('/');
}

// 👇️ 24/10/2021 (dd/mm/yyyy)
console.log(formatDate(new Date()));

//  👇️️ 24/07/2027 (dd/mm/yyyy)
console.log(formatDate(new Date(2027, 6, 24)));

The function takes a Date object as a parameter, formats the date as dd/mm/yyyy and returns the result.

This approach can be used to format a date in any other way. All you have to do is reorder the elements in the array and change the separator (e.g. to a hyphen -).

If you also need to include the time components, check out my other article: Format a Date as YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss in JavaScript.

# Format a Date as DD/MM/YYYY using date-fns

You can also use the date-fns module to format a date as DD/MM/YYYY.

First, make sure you have the module installed.

Open your terminal in your project's root directory (where your package.json file is) and run the following command to install date-fns.

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# 👇️ if you need to create a package.json file
npm init -y

# 👇️ with NPM
npm install date-fns

# 👇️ with YARN
yarn add date-fns

Now you can import and use the format() function to format a date as DD/MM/YYYY.

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import {format} from 'date-fns';

const date = new Date();

const result = format(date, 'dd/MM/yyyy');
console.log(result); // 👉️ 24/07/2023

The format function takes a date and a format string and returns the formatted date string in the specified format.

You can view all of the possible tokens that can be used in the second argument of the method in this table of the official docs.

# Format a Date as DD/MM/YYYY using moment.js

You can also use the moment.js library to format a date as DD/MM/YYYY.

However, note that the date-fns package is a better option because it is more modern and quite a bit faster than moment.

You can install the moment library by running the following command.

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# 👇️ with NPM
npm install moment

# 👇️ with YARN
yarn add moment

Now you can import and use the moment module to format the date as DD/MM/YYYY.

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import moment from 'moment';

const result = moment().format('DD/MM/YYYY');

console.log(result); // 👉️ 24/07/2023

However, as previously noted, you probably shouldn't use the moment module unless your project already makes use of it.

The module is quite a bit slower than the more modern date-fns package.

# Additional Resources

You can learn more about the related topics by checking out the following tutorials:

• Format a Date as YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss in JavaScript
• How to get the Current Year in JavaScript [for copyright]
• Get Month and Date in 2 Digit Format in JavaScript
• How to get a Date without the Time in JavaScript