Month Day Year Date Format
Month–day–year is a common human-readable date order and Microsoft’s house style uses forms such as “July 31, 2016.” Other regional guides use different orders, so the correct choice depends on audience, locale, and governing style.
Month–day–year is a valid house-style format, for example “July 31, 2016.” Use it when your locale or style guide calls for it rather than treating it as the only English date order.
Key details
Important caveats
Contrast Boundary
Other regional styles differ; the Australian Government Style Manual uses day–month–year in body text, so choose the order required by audience and house style.
Further guidance
Microsoft Style
Microsoft specifies month day, year for its prose style, such as “July 31, 2016.”
Practical Application
Use month–day–year when the audience, locale, or governing style calls for it. Spell the month in ordinary prose where clarity matters, place a comma between day and year in the conventional US form, and avoid presenting this order as universal English practice.
Reader Check
Does your chosen locale or house style actually use month–day–year, and is the same order used consistently throughout comparable dates?
Worked Example
For a US-style narrative date, write “July 31, 2016.” In a document governed by a day–month–year style, keep that alternate order instead of converting individual dates inconsistently.
Sources and evidence
Sources are shown with the role they play in this guide. Historical or style-sensitive claims are kept within the evidence boundary described above.
- Date and time terms — Microsoft Style Guide (opens in a new tab)Microsoft · Official Microsoft house-style guidance for dates and times, including date ordering and formatting examples.
- Dates and time — Australian Government Style Manual (opens in a new tab)Australian Government Style Manual · Australian Government guidance for day–month–year dates, ordinal dates, decades, centuries, time zones, and en-dash spacing in date/time spans