A guide to writing dates, days and time.
Days and months are spelt out in full unless appearing in T&Cs, disclaimers, contact details or mobile apps.
Dates should appear as <Day>, <Date><Month><Year>
Don’t use ‘st’, ‘nd’, ‘rd’, ‘th’ on dates.
No apostrophes on decades – it’s plural, not possessive.
For date/day/time ranges, use an em dash with no space on either side.
For times, use the 12-hour clock and use full stops to separate hours and minutes.
If you need to specify the time zone, use the following format:
Use 24/7 – not ‘24 hours, 7 days a week’.
When writing for mobile apps, the guidance for dates and times are as follows:
Date can be qualified as today, yesterday or tomorrow, write:
Date cannot be qualified as today, yesterday or tomorrow, write:
To write a date date with time:
Numbers 0 to 9 are generally written as words while numbers 10+ are generally written as numerals.
Use numerals instead of words for:
- business days
- age
- school years
- dates and business days
- street addresses
- tips articles
- instructions
- snappy copy
- mobile apps where space is limited.
Avoid starting a headline or sentence with a numeral unless it’s dollar amounts, percentages, points or tips/reasons/steps, etc.