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---
title: Date.prototype.toUTCString()
short-title: toUTCString()
slug: Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Date/toUTCString
page-type: javascript-instance-method
browser-compat: javascript.builtins.Date.toUTCString
sidebar: jsref
---
The **`toUTCString()`** method of {{jsxref("Date")}} instances returns a string representing this date in the [RFC 7231](https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc7231#section-7.1.1.1) format, with negative years allowed. The timezone is always UTC. `toGMTString()` is an alias of this method.
{{InteractiveExample("JavaScript Demo: Date.prototype.toUTCString()", "shorter")}}
```js interactive-example
const event = new Date("14 Jun 2017 00:00:00 PDT");
console.log(event.toUTCString());
// Expected output: "Wed, 14 Jun 2017 07:00:00 GMT"
```
## Syntax
```js-nolint
toUTCString()
```
### Parameters
None.
### Return value
A string representing the given date using the UTC time zone (see description for the format). Returns `"Invalid Date"` if the date is [invalid](/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Date#the_epoch_timestamps_and_invalid_date).
## Description
The value returned by `toUTCString()` is a string in the form `Www, dd Mmm yyyy HH:mm:ss GMT`, where:
| Format String | Description |
| ------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------ |
| `Www` | Day of week, as three letters (e.g., `Sun`, `Mon`) |
| `dd` | Day of month, as two digits with leading zero if required |
| `Mmm` | Month, as three letters (e.g., `Jan`, `Feb`) |
| `yyyy` | Year, as four or more digits with leading zeroes if required |
| `HH` | Hour, as two digits with leading zero if required |
| `mm` | Minute, as two digits with leading zero if required |
| `ss` | Seconds, as two digits with leading zero if required |
### Aliasing
JavaScript's `Date` API was inspired by Java's `java.util.Date` library (while the latter had become de facto legacy since Java 1.1 in 1997). In particular, the Java `Date` class had a method called `toGMTString` — which was poorly named, because the [Greenwich Mean Time](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwich_Mean_Time) is not equivalent to the [Coordinated Universal Time](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordinated_Universal_Time), while JavaScript dates always operate by UTC time. For web compatibility reasons, `toGMTString` remains as an alias to `toUTCString`, and they refer to the exact same function object. This means:
```js
Date.prototype.toGMTString.name === "toUTCString";
```
## Examples
### Using toUTCString()
```js
const d = new Date(0);
console.log(d.toUTCString()); // 'Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMT'
```
## Specifications
{{Specifications}}
## Browser compatibility
{{Compat}}
## See also
- {{jsxref("Date.prototype.toLocaleString()")}}
- {{jsxref("Date.prototype.toString()")}}
- {{jsxref("Date.prototype.toISOString()")}}
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