Java 8+ Date/Time Examples

Current Date/Time in UTC

// Path 1
Instant instantNow = Instant.now();

// Path 2
ZonedDateTime now = ZonedDateTime.now();

Current Date/Time in 'America/New_York' Timezone:

ZoneId americaNewYork = ZoneId.of("America/New_York");

// Path 1
Instant.now().atZone(americaNewYork);

// Path 2
ZonedDateTime.now().atZone(americaNewYork);

Full list of Zone IDs: Java Time Zone Ids

Example 1: UTC Date to Custom Format

String outputFormat = "MMMM dd yyyy";

DateTimeFormatter inputFormatter = DateTimeFormatter.ISO_DATE;
DateTimeFormatter outputFormatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern(outputFormat).withLocale(Locale.US);

LocalDate parsedDate = LocalDate.from(inputFormatter.parse(inputDate));
String outputDate = parsedDate.format(outputFormatter);

Example 2: Custom Date Format to UTC Date

String inputFormat = "MMMM dd, yyyy";

DateTimeFormatter inputFormatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern(inputFormat).withLocale(Locale.US);
DateTimeFormatter outputFormatter = DateTimeFormatter.ISO_DATE;

LocalDate parsedDate = LocalDate.from(inputFormatter.parse(inputDate));
String utcDate = parsedDate.format(outputFormatter);