Date.prototype.setDate()

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since July 2015.

The setDate() method of Date instances changes the day of the month for this date according to local time.

Try it

const event = new Date("August 19, 1975 23:15:30");

event.setDate(24);

console.log(event.getDate());
// Expected output: 24

event.setDate(32);
// Only 31 days in August!

console.log(event.getDate());
// Expected output: 1

Syntax

js
setDate(dateValue)

Parameters

dateValue

An integer representing the day of the month.

Return value

Changes the Date object in place, and returns its new timestamp. If dateValue is NaN (or other values that get coerced to NaN, such as undefined), the date is set to Invalid Date and NaN is returned.

Description

If you specify a number outside the expected range, the date information in the Date object is updated accordingly. For example, if the Date object holds June 1st, a dateValue of 40 changes the date to July 10th, while a dateValue of 0 changes the date to the last day of the previous month, May 31st.

Examples

Using setDate()

js
const theBigDay = new Date(1962, 6, 7, 12); // noon of 1962-07-07 (7th of July 1962, month is 0-indexed)
const theBigDay2 = new Date(theBigDay).setDate(24); // 1962-07-24 (24th of July 1962)
const theBigDay3 = new Date(theBigDay).setDate(32); // 1962-08-01 (1st of August 1962)
const theBigDay4 = new Date(theBigDay).setDate(22); // 1962-07-22 (22nd of July 1962)
const theBigDay5 = new Date(theBigDay).setDate(0); // 1962-06-30 (30th of June 1962)
const theBigDay6 = new Date(theBigDay).setDate(98); // 1962-10-06 (6th of October 1962)
const theBigDay7 = new Date(theBigDay).setDate(-50); // 1962-05-11 (11th of May 1962)

Specifications

Specification
ECMAScript® 2025 Language Specification
# sec-date.prototype.setdate

Browser compatibility

Report problems with this compatibility data on GitHub
desktopmobileserver
Chrome
Edge
Firefox
Opera
Safari
Chrome Android
Firefox for Android
Opera Android
Safari on iOS
Samsung Internet
WebView Android
WebView on iOS
Deno
Node.js
setDate

Legend

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Full support
Full support

See also