Date and time notation in New Zealand

Date and time notation in New Zealand most commonly records the date using the day-month-year format (17 November 2024), while the ISO 8601 format (2024-11-17) is increasingly used for all-numeric dates, such as date of birth.[1] The time can be written using either the 12-hour clock (4:21 am) or the 24-hour clock (04:21).

Date and time notation in New Zealand [refresh]
Full date17 November 2024
All-numeric date2024-11-17
17/11/2024
Time04:21
4:21 am

Date

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New Zealanders typically write the date in the little-endian sequence, as in the United Kingdom and Australia:

  • 17 November 2024
  • 17/11/2024

The month–day–year order (November 17, 2024) is sometimes used, usually informally in the mastheads of magazines, schools, newspapers,[2] advertisements, video games, news, and TV shows. However, similar to the UK, the MDY in numeric-only form (11/17/2024) is never used as it can be easily confused for the DMY format.

Weeks are most identified by the last day of the week, either the Friday in business (e.g., "week ending 19/1") or the Sunday in other use (e.g., "week ending 21/1").

Time

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The New Zealand Government readability guidelines recommend writing showing the time in a 12-hour format,[3] although the 24-hour clock (04:21) can be used in technical fields such as military, aviation, computing, navigation, transportation and the sciences.[citation needed] The before noon/after noon qualifier is usually written as "am" or "pm". A colon is the preferred time separator. New Zealanders are also recommended to use "midnight" instead of "00:00" in writing.[3] UTC time is used in some cases by the New Zealand land service information data service.[4]

References

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  1. ^ "Date of birth data content requirement". data.govt.nz. 2 August 2021. Archived from the original on 2 September 2021.
  2. ^ "Latest breaking news NZ". Stuff. 16 September 2024. Archived from the original on 28 February 2001.
  3. ^ a b "Numbers". digital.govt.nz. Retrieved 29 June 2024.
  4. ^ "Changeset dates and timestamps". Toitū Te Whenua Land Information New Zealand. 2 September 2021. Archived from the original on 10 February 2016.