What is a Unix Timestamp?
A Unix timestamp is the number of seconds elapsed since the Unix Epoch — midnight UTC on January 1, 1970. This single integer provides a universal, timezone-independent way to represent any moment in time.
Unix timestamps are used everywhere: database columns, API responses, log files, JWT tokens, cron jobs, and file system metadata. Their simplicity — a single number — makes them trivially sortable, comparable, and storable across any programming language or database.
Seconds vs Milliseconds
1712188800Used by: C, Python, PHP, Ruby, Unix shell, PostgreSQL, MySQL
1712188800000Used by: JavaScript, Java, Dart, Elasticsearch, MongoDB
Notable Timestamps
0Unix Epoch
Jan 1, 1970 00:00:00 UTC
946684800Year 2000 (Y2K)
Jan 1, 2000 00:00:00 UTC
10000000001 Billion
Sep 9, 2001 01:46:40 UTC
2147483647Max 32-bit
Jan 19, 2038 03:14:07 UTC
20000000002 Billion
May 18, 2033 03:33:20 UTC
4102444800Year 2100
Jan 1, 2100 00:00:00 UTC
Get Current Timestamp by Language
Math.floor(Date.now() / 1000)import time; int(time.time())time()time.Now().Unix()System.currentTimeMillis()Time.now.to_iDateTimeOffset.UtcNow.ToUnixTimeSeconds()SystemTime::now().duration_since(UNIX_EPOCH)?.as_secs()date +%sSELECT EXTRACT(EPOCH FROM NOW())Frequently Asked Questions
What is a Unix timestamp?+
A Unix timestamp (also called Epoch time or POSIX time) is the number of seconds that have elapsed since January 1, 1970 00:00:00 UTC — a moment known as the Unix Epoch. It provides a single, timezone-independent number that uniquely identifies a point in time, making it ideal for storing and comparing dates across systems.
What is the difference between seconds and milliseconds?+
A Unix timestamp in seconds is a 10-digit number (e.g. 1712188800). JavaScript, Java, and many APIs use milliseconds — a 13-digit number (e.g. 1712188800000) that is simply the seconds value multiplied by 1000. Our tool detects and converts both formats.
What is the Year 2038 problem?+
Many older systems store Unix timestamps as a signed 32-bit integer, which overflows on January 19, 2038 at 03:14:07 UTC. After that moment, the timestamp wraps to a negative number, potentially breaking date calculations. 64-bit systems and modern languages (JavaScript uses 64-bit floats) are not affected. Most critical infrastructure has been or is being migrated to 64-bit timestamps.
Why do APIs use Unix timestamps instead of date strings?+
Unix timestamps are timezone-neutral, language-agnostic, compact (a single integer), and trivially sortable and comparable. Date strings require parsing, timezone handling, and format negotiation between systems. Timestamps eliminate an entire class of internationalization and parsing bugs.
How does this converter handle timezones?+
Unix timestamps are always in UTC by definition. When converting to a human-readable date, our tool shows both UTC and your local timezone (detected from your browser). When converting a date string to a timestamp, the string is parsed by your browser's Date engine, which applies local timezone if no timezone is specified in the input.
Built With
This tool uses JavaScript's native Date API — no external date libraries needed.