How to add Months to a Date in Python

# Add months to a date in Python

Use the relativedelta class from the dateutil.relativedelta module to add months to a date in Python.

The relativedelta class automatically handles months with different numbers of days.

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from datetime import date, datetime
from dateutil.relativedelta import relativedelta


date_1 = date(2023, 6, 24)
print(date_1)  # 👉️ 2023-06-24

# ✅ Add 3 months to a date
result = date_1 + relativedelta(months=+3)
print(result)  # 👉️ 2023-09-24

Make sure to import the relativedelta class and the date or datetime classes.

# Installing python-dateutil

If you don't have the python-dateutil module installed, run the following command:

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pip install python-dateutil

# 👇️ or with pip3
pip3 install python-dateutil

The python-dateutil module provides extensions to the standard Python datetime module.

The example shows how to add months to a date object.

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from datetime import date, datetime
from dateutil.relativedelta import relativedelta


date_1 = date(2023, 6, 24)
print(date_1)  # 👉️ 2023-06-24

result = date_1 + relativedelta(months=+3)
print(result)  # 👉️ 2023-09-24

Notice that we prefixed the number of months with a plus + to indicate that we want to add the specified number of months.

If necessary, the year will be rolled over automatically (e.g. adding 5 months to a date in November).

# Add months to the current date

If you need to add months to the current date, use the date.today() method.

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from datetime import date, datetime
from dateutil.relativedelta import relativedelta


date_1 = date.today()
print(date_1)  # 👉️ 2023-07-21

result = date_1 + relativedelta(months=+2)
print(result)  # 👉️ 2023-09-21

The date.today() method returns a date object that represents the current local date.

Make sure to import the relativedelta and date classes.

# Extracting the date after adding months

If you only need to extract the date after the operation, call the date() method on the datetime object.

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from datetime import datetime
from dateutil.relativedelta import relativedelta

now = datetime.now()
print(now)  # 👉️ 2023-07-21 08:39:13.428040

result = now + relativedelta(months=+3)

print(result)  # 👉️ 2023-10-21 08:39:13.428040

# 👇️ only extract updated date
print(result.date())  # 👉️ 2023-10-21

The datetime.date method returns a date object with the same year, month and day.

# Using a formatted-string literal to format the date

If you need to format the date in a certain way, use a formatted string literal.

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from datetime import datetime
from dateutil.relativedelta import relativedelta

now = datetime.now()
print(now)  # 👉️ 2023-02-18 18:54:05.944818

result = now + relativedelta(months=+5)

print(result)  # 👉️ 2023-07-18 18:54:05.944818

# 👇️ only extract updated date
print(result.date())  # 👉️ 2023-07-18

print(f'{result:%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S}')  # 👉️ 2023-07-18 18:54:05

Formatted string literals (f-strings) let us include expressions inside of a string by prefixing the string with f.

Make sure to wrap expressions in curly braces - {expression}.

Formatted string literals also enable us to use the format specification mini-language in expression blocks.

# Creating a datetime object from a date string and adding months

You can also create a datetime object from a date string and add months to it.

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from datetime import datetime
from dateutil.relativedelta import relativedelta


my_str = '09-24-2023'  # 👉️ (mm-dd-yyyy)

date_1 = datetime.strptime(my_str, '%m-%d-%Y')
print(date_1)  # 👉️ 2023-09-24 00:00:00


result = date_1 + relativedelta(months=+2)
print(result)  # 👉️ 2023-11-24 00:00:00

The datetime.strptime() method returns a datetime object that corresponds to the provided date string, parsed according to the format.

If you have a date string that is formatted in a different way, use this table of the docs to look up the format codes you should pass as the second argument to the strptime() method.

# Adding months to the current date using a datetime object

The following example adds months to the current date using a datetime object.

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from datetime import datetime
from dateutil.relativedelta import relativedelta


date_1 = datetime.today()
print(date_1)  # 👉️ 2023-07-21 08:44:16.815774

result = date_1 + relativedelta(months=+3)
print(result)  # 👉️ 2023-10-21 08:44:16.815774

The datetime.today() method returns the current local date and time.

I've also written an article on how to add days to a date.

# Additional Resources

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

• How to add Days or Weeks to a Date in Python
• How to add Hours to Datetime in Python
• How to add Milliseconds to Datetime in Python
• How to add Minutes to Datetime in Python
• How to add Seconds to Datetime in Python
• How to Add year(s) to a date in Python
• TypeError: can't compare datetime.datetime to datetime.date
• How to convert a datetime.timedelta to String in Python