How to Change Date Format in Windows 11 Language Settings

Method 1Change date format via Settings (recommended)

Settings is the quickest route and works the same on Windows 11 Home and Pro. It offers the standard date layouts for your region. If the layout you want is not in the list, use the Control Panel method further down.

1. Press Win+I to open Settings⚙️.
2. Select Time & language from the left-hand navigation menu.
3. Click Language & region. The language and regional options appear on the right.
4. Find the Regional format row and click it to expand it. Your current region appears, along with a preview of how dates and times display.
5. Click the Change formats button. A set of dropdown menus appears for calendar, first day of week, short date, long date, short time and long time.
6. Open the Short date dropdown and pick the layout you want, for example one with a 4-digit year. Do the same for Long date if you want that changed too.
7. Close Settings. The change applies as soon as you pick it, and there is no Save button.

Short date is the format shown in the taskbar clock and in File Explorer columns. Long date is used in places like the calendar flyout. The Change formats page is reached through Settings › Time & language › Language & region, under the Regional format row.

The taskbar clock has its own options too. Open Settings › Time & language › Date & time to find extra taskbar clock settings, such as showing seconds. The exact list can vary slightly between Windows 11 builds.

To undo the change, return to the same dropdowns and select your previous layout. To go back to the defaults for your region, change the Regional format dropdown to Recommended where it is offered.

Method 2Change Date Format via Control Panel

1. Open the Start menu⊞ search bar🔍, type control panel, and press Enter. Control Panel🎛️ opens.
2. Click Clock and Region in the main Control Panel🎛️ window. If your view is set to large or small icons instead of categories, this link does not appear. Click Region directly and skip the next step.
3. Click Region to open the Region properties window.
4. Stay on the Formats tab and click the dropdown menu next to Short date. A list of layouts appears.
5. Select an existing format from the list. If you need a custom layout, click Additional settings and open the Date tab to type your own pattern. Use yyyy for year, MM for month, and dd for day. Letter case matters, and the number of letters controls the result. More letters in the day or month token, for example, give a leading zero.
6. Check the preview in the window. It shows today’s date in the new layout, so you can catch a mistake before saving.
7. Click Apply to test the new date display.
8. Click OK to save your changes and close the window.

Some apps read the date format only when they start. If one still shows the old layout, close it and open it again. Signing out and back in also fixes it.

To undo your changes, open the same window and click Reset in the Additional settings dialog. That restores the defaults for your region.

Method 3Modify date format via Registry Editor (advanced)

Registry Editor is a database tool for viewing and changing low-level system settings. It is only worth using for advanced or scripted setups, because Settings and Control Panel write to the same place and have built-in checks. A wrong edit here can cause odd behavior, so back up the registry first.

To back up, click File, then Export in Registry Editor. Choose All as the export range and save the file somewhere safe. To restore it later, double-click the saved file.

Before the steps, here is where the date format lives. Your personal setting is stored under 🗝️HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Internationalcopy. The short date pattern is the string value sShortDate. The long date pattern is sLongDate. Because this key belongs to the current user, the edit affects only the account you are signed in to.

1. Press Win+R to open the Run dialog box.
2. Type regedit and press Enter to open Registry Editor. Click Yes if the User Account Control prompt appears.
3. Paste 🗝️HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel🎛️\Internationalcopy into the address bar at the top of the window and press Enter. The right pane lists the date and time string values, including sShortDate and sLongDate.
4. Double-click the string value you want to change, such as sShortDate. An Edit String box opens showing the current data.
5. Type your date format string, for example yyyy-MM-dd, into the Value data field, replacing the old text.
6. Click OK and close Registry Editor.

Sign out and back in, or restart the PC, so every app picks up the new value. To undo the edit, put the old text back into the same value, or import the backup file you exported.

Method 4Configure date format via PowerShell

PowerShell is a command-line shell for task automation. It is useful when you want to change the date format on several accounts or remote computers, or as part of a setup script. For a single PC you are sitting at, Settings is the better choice.

The command works on the same registry value described in the previous method. It uses Set-ItemProperty on the path 🗝️HKCU:\Control Panel\Internationalcopy and the value name sShortDate. The full command for a year-month-day layout is: Set-ItemProperty -Path “🗝️HKCU:\Control Panel\Internationalcopy” -Name “sShortDate” -Value “yyyy-MM-dd”. Use the name sLongDate to change the long date instead.

A note on administrator rights. HKCU means the current user’s registry hive, so the command changes the account that runs PowerShell. For your own account, open PowerShell normally and no elevation is needed. If you choose Run as administrator and are prompted for a different administrator account’s credentials, the change applies to that administrator account and not to the user you are signed in as. An elevated session under your own account still changes your own settings.

1. Open the Start menu⊞ and type powershell. Press Enter to open Windows PowerShell as your own user. Right-click it and select Run as administrator only if your setup requires it, then click Yes on the User Account Control prompt.
2. Type the Set-ItemProperty command shown above, with the pattern you want in place of yyyy-MM-dd, and press Enter.
3. Check the output. If the command ran without a red error message, it was accepted. Sign out and back in, then confirm the result by looking at the date in the taskbar🖥️ or in Settings.
4. Close the PowerShell window.

As with the registry method, apps that are already open may keep the old format until you reopen them or sign out and back in. If the command reports an error, check that you typed it exactly as given, including the quotation marks and the colon after HKCU. To undo the change, run the command again with your previous pattern.

Multi-Language Systems

Multi-language systems need some care when you override regional date formats. Changing the short date format on its own, without touching the display language, avoids localization conflicts where interface text matches one region while calendar elements follow another. For example, you can keep an English interface and still show dates the way your country writes them.

If you have several languages or keyboards installed, the date format comes from the Regional format setting, not from the language you are typing in. Switching keyboards does not change how dates display.

What to do next

Your new date format should now appear across the Windows taskbar and system interface. If the taskbar still shows the old date, sign out and back in.

Next, you can customize your taskbar clock in Settings › Time & language › Date & time, for example to show or hide seconds. You can also adjust your system time zone there to match your current location.