HTML 5 <time> Tag

The HTML <time> tag is used for declaring the date and/or time within an HTML document.

The <time> tag was introduced in HTML 5.

Example

In the pane below, you will find three examples.

  1. Example 1 demonstrates basic usage of the <time> tag.
  2. Example 2 shows how to use the datetime attribute in order to provide the contents in a machine-readable format.
  3. Example 3 uses the datetime attribute to provide an even more specific date and time than the previous example.

Attributes

HTML tags can contain one or more attributes. Attributes are added to a tag to provide the browser with more information about how the tag should appear or behave. Attributes consist of a name and a value separated by an equals (=) sign, with the value surrounded by double quotes. Here's an example, style="color:black;".

There are 3 kinds of attributes that you can add to your HTML tags: Element-specific, global, and event handler content attributes.

The attributes that you can add to this tag are listed below.

Element-Specific Attributes

The following table shows the attributes that are specific to this tag/element.

AttributeDescription
datetimeSpecifies the date or time being specified. Must be a representation of the element's contents in a machine-readable format. Must be a valid date or time string.

Global Attributes

The following attributes are standard across all HTML 5 tags (although the tabindex attribute does not apply to dialog elements).

For a full explanation of these attributes, see HTML 5 global attributes.

Event Handler Content Attributes

Event handler content attributes enable you to invoke a script from within your HTML. The script is invoked when a certain "event" occurs. Each event handler content attribute deals with a different event.

For a full list of event handlers, see HTML 5 event handler content attributes.