Unix Timestamp Converter

Log files, databases, APIs and JWT tokens store time as a Unix timestamp – the number of seconds since 1 January 1970 UTC. It is perfect for computers and unreadable for people. FreePDF’s converter turns any epoch value into a clear date in your own time zone or any other, and turns dates back into timestamps, showing ISO 8601, RFC 2822, relative time and ISO week at once. A live clock shows the current epoch second, and nothing is sent to a server.

Common uses

• Read “created_at” and “exp” values in API responses and JWTs.
• Turn server log timestamps into local time while debugging an incident.
• Generate an epoch value for a database query, cron job or test fixture.
• Check when a cache entry, cookie or token expires.
• Compare an event time across offices in different time zones.

Tips for best results

• Press “Use now” to insert the current timestamp.
• If a date looks 50,000 years in the future, the value was probably in milliseconds – switch the unit.
• Dates without a time zone are read in your local zone; add Z or +05:30 to be explicit.
• ISO 8601 (2026-03-15T09:00:00.000Z) is the safest format to store or exchange.
• Negative timestamps are valid and represent dates before 1970.

What a Unix timestamp is

Unix time counts the seconds that have passed since the “epoch”, 00:00:00 UTC on 1 January 1970, ignoring leap seconds. Because it is a single number in UTC, it sorts correctly, is easy to compare and does not depend on anyone’s time zone or daylight saving. JavaScript and many modern APIs use milliseconds instead of seconds, so the same moment may appear as 1767225600 or 1767225600000. The converter recognises the scale by the number of digits.

Time zones and daylight saving

A timestamp is always UTC; the time zone only changes how it is displayed. Converting 1767225600 shows midnight on 1 January 2026 in London, 7 pm on 31 December in New York and 5:30 am in Mumbai. The tool uses your browser’s built-in time-zone database, so historical and future daylight-saving changes are applied correctly. When you type a date to convert into a timestamp, include an offset or “Z” if the source is not in your local zone.

The year 2038 problem

Older systems store Unix time as a signed 32-bit integer, which overflows at 03:14:07 UTC on 19 January 2038 (timestamp 2,147,483,647). After that, such systems wrap around to 1901. Modern operating systems, databases and languages use 64-bit time, which lasts for billions of years, but embedded devices and legacy file formats may still be affected. The binary and hex converter on this site can show you exactly where the 32-bit limit sits.