Date and Time Data Types in BigQuery

BigQuery supports 4 main date and time data types:

Name Description Canonical Format Note
DATE Represents a logical calendar date, without time. YYYY-[M]M-[D]D Range from 0001-01-01 to 9999-12-31
TIME Represents a time, independent of a specific date. [H]H:[M]M:[S]S[.DDDDDD] Range from 00:00:00 to 23:59:59.999999
DATETIME Represents a year, month, day, hour, minute, second, and subsecond without a timezone. † YYYY-[M]M-[D]D[(|T)[H]H:[M]M:[S]S[.DDDDDD]] Range from 0001-01-01 00:00:00 to 9999-12-31 23:59:59.999999
TIMESTAMP Represents an absolute point in time, with microsecond precision with a timezone. YYYY-[M]M-[D]D[( |T)[H]H:[M]M:[S]S[.DDDDDD]][time zone] Range from 0001-01-01 00:00:00 to 9999-12-31 23:59:59.999999

DATETIME is seldom used, as it's rare to wish to omit the timezone.

How to read Canonical Format:

  • YYYY: Four-digit year
  • [M]M: One or two digit month
  • [D]D: One or two digit day
  • ( |T): A space or a T separator
  • [H]H: One or two digit hour (valid values from 00 to 23)
  • [M]M: One or two digit minutes (valid values from 00 to 59)
  • [S]S: One or two digit seconds (valid values from 00 to 59)
  • [.DDDDDD]: Up to six fractional digits (microsecond precision)
  • [time zone]: String representing the time zone, with two canonical formats:
    • Time zone name per the tz database
    • Offset from Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), or the letter Z for UTC

Be sure to check out our Date and Time Function cheat sheet to see how querying date and times differs in BigQuery and across databases.

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