'>' not supported between instances of 'datetime.datetime' and 'str'

# '>' not supported between instances of 'datetime.datetime' and 'str'

The Python "TypeError: '>' not supported between instances of 'datetime.datetime' and 'str'" occurs when we try to compare a datetime object and a string.

To solve the error, use the strptime() method to convert the string to a datetime object before the comparison.

typeerror not supported between instances of datetime datetime and str

Here is an example of how the error occurs.

main.py

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from datetime import datetime

today = datetime.today()
print(today)  # 👉️ "2023-07-20 15:10:36.783382"

dt = "2026-09-01 16:32:33"

# ⛔️ TypeError: '>' not supported between instances of 'datetime.datetime' and 'str'
print(today > dt)

not supported between instances of datetime and str

We used a comparison operator between values of incompatible types (datetime object and str) which caused the error.

# Use the `strptime` method to convert the string to a datetime object

To solve the error, we have to use the strptime() method to convert the string to a datetime object.

main.py

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from datetime import datetime

today = datetime.today()
print(today)  # 👉️ "2023-07-20 15:12:00.883541"

# ✅ convert date string to a datetime object
dt = datetime.strptime(
    "2026-09-01 16:32:33",
    "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"
)

print(dt)  # 👉️ "2026-09-01 16:32:33"

print(today > dt)  # 👉️ False

using strptime method to convert string to datetime object

The values on the left-hand and right-hand sides of the comparison operator need to be of compatible types.

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

main.py

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from datetime import datetime

d = '2022-11-24 09:30:00.000123'

# 👇️ convert string to datetime object
datetime_obj = datetime.strptime(d, '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.%f')

# 👇️ Thursday, 24. November 2022 09:30AM
print(datetime_obj.strftime("%A, %d. %B %Y %I:%M%p"))

The strptime() method takes the following 2 arguments:

Name	Description
date_string	The date string that is to be converted to a `datetime` object
format	The format string that should be used to parse the date string into a `datetime` object

For a complete list of the format codes that the strptime method supports, check out this table of the official docs.

# Converting another string to a datetime object

Here is an example of converting a string that uses a different format.

main.py

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from datetime import datetime

today = datetime.today()
print(today)  # 👉️ "2023-07-20 15:13:29.918900"

dt = datetime.strptime("2026/11/24 09:30", "%Y/%m/%d %H:%M")
print(dt)  # 👉️ 2026-11-24 09:30:00

print(today < dt)  # 👉️ True

convert another string to datetime object

For us to be able to compare the values, they both have to be datetime objects.

For a complete list of the format codes that the strptime method supports, check out this table of the official docs.

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'>' not supported between instances of 'datetime.datetime' and 'str'