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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-11T21:37:55+00:00

If you need your web application to translate between timezones on a per-user basis,

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If you need your web application to translate between timezones on a per-user basis, why not use TIMESTAMP across the board for all date/time fields? Consider that TIMESTAMP values are stored in UTC and converted to the timezone set for the connection when retrieved.

I have asked this question on IRC, read the MySQL documentation, searched Google extensively, and asked my co-workers, and I have yet to find a compelling reason to not use TIMESTAMP.

Note: I understand TIMESTAMP has a limited range of 1970 – 2038; that is not going to be an issue in my case. Also, I am using PHP with MySQL.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    DATETIME is for arbitrary dates and times that you utilize in your data.

    TIMESTAMP is for when you want the time to be automatically updated. If you want to know when the row was inserted/updated, use a TIMESTAMP.

    Also, keep in mind that a TIMESTAMP is only stored in UTC — it is converted to the local timezone of the server before it is transmitted back as part of a query.

    In your case, you’re better off using a DATETIME. If you’re worried about UTC, that’s fine — just create your dates in UTC rather than using the local time. Use UTC_TIMESTAMP.

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