Date and time notation in the Netherlands

In the Netherlands, dates are written using the little-endian pattern "day–month–year" as is usual elsewhere in Europe and many other countries. Times are written using the 24-hour clock, but using various notation.

Date

• dd-mm-yyyy ("31-10-1999")
• dd-mm-yy ("31-10-99")
• month written out ("31 oktober 1999")
• month abbreviated ("31 okt 1999")
• occasionally month in Roman numerals ("31 X 1999")
• including day of week ("zondag 31 oktober 1999")
• when a year is abbreviated to two digits, an apostrophe is used ("31 oktober '99")

The names and abbreviations of months and days are as follows:

English	Dutch	Dutch abbreviation
January	januari	jan
February	februari	feb
March	maart	mrt
April	april	apr
May	mei	mei
June	juni	jun
July	juli	jul
August	augustus	aug
September	september	sep
October	oktober	okt
November	november	nov
December	december	dec

English	Dutch	Dutch abbreviation
Monday	maandag	ma
Tuesday	dinsdag	di
Wednesday	woensdag	wo
Thursday	donderdag	do
Friday	vrijdag	vr
Saturday	zaterdag	za
Sunday	zondag	zo

Names of months and days are not capitalised in Dutch.

Time

Dutch TV listings magazines invariably use 24-hour notation

In written language, time is expressed in the 24-hour notation, with or without leading zero, using a full stop or colon as a separator, sometimes followed by the word uur (hour) or its abbreviation u. – for example, 22.51 uur, 9.12 u., or 09:12. In technical and scientific texts the use of the abbreviations h, min and s is common – for example, 17 h 03 min 16 s. Use of the 12-hour clock in numeric writing is not standard practice, not even in informal writing, and writing e.g., "1.30" for 13:30 would be regarded as odd.

In spoken language, most often time is expressed in the 12-hour clock. However, "a.m." and "p.m." are never used. Instead, an apposition is added, for instance 21:00 is said as "9 uur 's avonds" (9 o'clock in the evening). Half hours are relative to the next hour – for example, 5:30 is said as "half 6". Quarter hours are expressed relative to the nearest whole hour – for example, 6:15, "kwart over 6" (quarter past six) and 6:45, "kwart voor zeven" (quarter to seven). Minutes are usually rounded off to the nearest five minutes and are expressed relative to the closest half-hour. For instance 05:35 is "5 over half 6" (literally "5 past half to 6") and 05:20 is "tien voor half 6" (literally "10 to half to 6").

When the 24-hour clock is used in spoken language, usually the written form is pronounced with the hours as a number, the word "uur" (hour) and the minutes as a number. For example, 17:21 might be pronounced as "zeventien uur eenentwintig" (seventeen hours twenty-one). Hours over 12 are not usually combined with phrasings using "half", "quarter", "to", or "past".