How to add, subtract days, months, years, hours from Date and Time in Java - Example

Adding days, hours, month or years to dates is a common task in Java. java.util.Calendar can be used to perform Date and Time arithmetic in Java. Calendar class not only provides date manipulation but it also support time manipulation i.e. you can add, subtract hours, minutes and seconds from current time. Calendar class automatically handles date transition or month transition for example if you ask date after 30 days it will return you date based on whether current month is 30 or 31 days long. Same is true in case of adding and subtracting years, Calendar takes care whether current or following year is a leap year or not.


For example, 2012 is a leap year and it has February with 29 days, if you ask Calendar day before 365 it will return 24th July (assuming current date 23^rd July) which shows it takes care of leap year. 

By the way there are couple of more data and time related articles like How to find current date and time in Java and How to convert Date to String in Java. If you haven’t read them already, It’s worth checking to know more about Date and Time in Java.

How to add or subtract days, months, and year from the date in Java

Calendar.DATE field can be used to add or subtract dates in Java. Positive value passed into add() method will add days into date while negative values will subtract days from date in Java. Similarly Calendar.MONTH can be used to add and subtract months from date in Java. 

You can use this to get date after 2 months or before 2 months. Just keep in mind that Calendar.MONTH start from zero. Same add() method can be used to both add or subtract months in Java. 

Once again difference will only be on whether value is positive or negative. Calendar.YEAR can be used to add or subtract year from current date in the same fashion we added days and month into date.

How to add or subtract hours, minutes and seconds from Time in Java

Calendar class not only provides Date information but also gives Time related information. You can get hours, minutes, and seconds from java.util.Calendar instance. Similarly you can use the same add() method for adding or subtracting hours, minutes and seconds from the current time in Java. 

Just need to careful whether you are using Calendar.HOUR or Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY because former represent time in AM and PM while later represent time in 24 hours time. Calendar.MINUTES can be used for adding or subtracting minutes from Date.

Important points related to Calendar class in Java

1) Calendar has overloaded getInstance() method which can return Calendar instance in either default timezone and locale or specified timezone or locale.

2) Calendar has different fields to return specifics from Calendar like Calendar.DATE, Calendar.MONTH, Calendar.YEAR etc you can check Javadoc for full list.

3) Calendar.MONTH return zero for first month, keep in mind while using value returned by Calendar.get(Calendar.MONTH)

4) Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY represent time in 24 hours format. Calendar also support AM or PM format.

import java.util.Calendar;
import java.util.TimeZone;

/**
 * Java program to add, subtract dates, month and year using Calendar in Java.

 * Apart from date, Calendar class also provide time related information and can

 * be used to add and subtract hours, minutes and seconds from time in Java.

 *
 * @author Javin Paul
 */
public class DateAndTimeArithmetic {
 
    public static void main(String args[]){
   
        //Java calendar in default timezone and default locale
        Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
        cal.setTimeZone(TimeZone.getTimeZone("GMT"));
     
        System.out.println("current date: " + getDate(cal));
     
     
        //adding days into Date in Java
        cal.add(Calendar.DATE, 2);
        System.out.println("date after 2 days : " + getDate(cal));
     
        //subtracting days from Date in Java
        cal.add(Calendar.DATE, -2);
        System.out.println("date before 2 days : " + getDate(cal));
     
     
       //adding moths into Date
        cal.add(Calendar.MONTH, 5);
        System.out.println("date after 5 months : " + getDate(cal));
     
        //subtracting months from Date
        cal.add(Calendar.MONTH, -5);
        System.out.println("date before 5 months : " + getDate(cal));
     
        //adding year into Date
        cal.add(Calendar.YEAR, 5);
        System.out.println("date after 5 years : " + getDate(cal));
     
        //subtracting year from Date
        cal.add(Calendar.YEAR, -5);
        System.out.println("date before 5 years : " + getDate(cal));
     
        //date after 200 days from now, takes care of how many days are in month
        //for years calendar takes care of leap year as well
        cal.add(Calendar.DATE, 200);
        System.out.println("date after 200 days from today : " + getDate(cal));
     
        System.out.println("current time in GMT: " + getTime(cal));
     
        //adding hours into Date
        cal.add(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY, 3);
        System.out.println("Time after 3 hours : " + getTime(cal));
     
        //subtracting hours from Date time
        cal.add(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY, -3);
        System.out.println("Time before 3 hours : " + getTime(cal));
     
        //adding minutes into Date time
        cal.add(Calendar.MINUTE, 3);
        System.out.println("Time after 3 minutes : " + getTime(cal));
     
        //subtracting minutes from Date time
        cal.add(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY, -3);
        System.out.println("Time before 3 minuets : " + getTime(cal));
     
    }
 
    /**
     *
     * @return current Date from Calendar in dd/MM/yyyy format
     * adding 1 into month because Calendar month starts from zero
     */
    public static String getDate(Calendar cal){
        return "" + cal.get(Calendar.DATE) +"/" +
                (cal.get(Calendar.MONTH)+1) + "/" + cal.get(Calendar.YEAR);
    }
 
    /**
     *
     * @return current Date from Calendar in HH:mm:SS format
     *
     * adding 1 into month because Calendar month starts from zero
     */
    public static String getTime(Calendar cal){
        return "" + cal.get(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY) +":" +
                (cal.get(Calendar.MINUTE)) + ":" + cal.get(Calendar.SECOND);
    }
 
}

Output:
current date: 23/7/2012
date after 2 days : 25/7/2012
date before 2 days : 23/7/2012
date after 5 months : 23/12/2012
date before 5 months : 23/7/2012
date after 5 years : 23/7/2017
date before 5 years : 23/7/2012
date after 200 days from today : 8/2/2013
current time in GMT: 6:12:53
Time after 3 hours : 9:12:53
Time before 3 hours : 6:12:53
Time after 3 minutes : 6:15:53
Time before 3 minuets : 3:15:53

That’s all on How to add days, months, and years on Date in Java. We have also seen how to add hours, minutes, and seconds into time using java.util.Calendar class. Two points that are worth remembering are that the month starts from zero and time can be represented in either 24 hours format or AM-PM format.

Other Date and Time tutorials from Javarevisited Blog

Difference between java.util.Date and java.sql.Date in Java

How to create Date from String in Java

SimpleDateFormat is not thread-safe, Use carefully

Difference between java.sql.Time, java.sql.Timestamp and java.util.Date in Java

How to make SimpleDateFormat thread-safe using ThreadLocal in Java