Getting last month's date in php

Question

I want to get last month's date. I wrote this out:

$prevmonth = date('M Y');

Which gives me the current month/year. I can't tell if I should use strtotime, mktime. Something to the timestamp? Do I need to add something afterwards to reset so that the date isn't set to last month throughout everything for all timestamps on my site? I'm trying to RTM but it's hard for me to figure this out.

score 257 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 21 '16 at 17:37

257

It's simple to get last month date

echo date("Y-n-j", strtotime("first day of previous month"));
echo date("Y-n-j", strtotime("last day of previous month"));

at November 3 returns

2014-10-1
2014-10-31

edited Apr 21 '16 at 17:37

Josafat

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answered Mar 03 '11 at 12:32

OzzyCzech

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This one is not good enough and can cause errors in your code: `$time = strtotime('2011-03-30 01:01:01'); echo date('r', strtotime('-1 month', $time));` this one will return Wed, 02 Mar 2011 01:01:01 - not february! Use `strtotime('first day of previous month')` instead – Ostin Jun 06 '13 at 17:41
@OzzyCzech It returns October 1 and 31 when you run it on March 3? – The Unknown Dev Jan 06 '15 at 22:02
$data_day_str=strtotime("previous month",strtotime('2011-03-30 01:01:01')); You will get february of 2011. – Rodrigo Serzedello Dec 02 '19 at 02:21
Working well on my php version 7.4 – Bang Andre Mar 29 '23 at 07:55

score 39 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 11 '09 at 17:53

39

echo strtotime("-1 month");

That will output the timestamp for last month exactly. You don't need to reset anything afterwards. If you want it in an English format after that, you can use date() to format the timestamp, ie:

echo date("Y-m-d H:i:s",strtotime("-1 month"));

answered Dec 11 '09 at 17:53

zombat

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Today is October 31, 2012. date("Y-m-d", strtotime("-1 month")); Returns 2012-10-01. :( – Todd Oct 31 '12 at 18:31
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@toddsler Correct. -1 month is the very same as writing -30 days which on certain dates during the year will either skip 1 month or remain on the same month, so be careful with this method. – silkfire Oct 21 '13 at 09:20
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DO NOT USE THIS SOLUTION! Previous comments are correct, you will have errors that will be triggered only on the 31th day of the month (or in 29,30,31 of march) – Teenage Jan 31 '20 at 15:30
1

Doesn't work if the day is 31st of the month, strtotime("first day of -1 month") it works perfectly – Adnen Chouibi Oct 31 '21 at 14:23

Fury · Answer 3 · 2019-03-08T09:57:22.873

21

Incorrect answers are:

$lastMonth = date('M Y', strtotime("-1 month"));
$lastDate = date('Y-m', strtotime('last month'));

The reason is if current month is 30+ days but previous month is 29 and less $lastMonth will be the same as current month.

e.g.

If $currentMonth = '30/03/2016';
echo $lastMonth = date('m-Y', strtotime("-1 month")); => 03-2016
echo $lastDate = date('Y-m', strtotime('last month')); => 2016-03

The correct answer will be:

echo date("m-Y", strtotime("first day of previous month")); => 02-2016
echo sprintf("%02d",date("m")-1) . date("-Y"); => 02-2016
echo date("m-Y",mktime(0,0,0,date("m")-1,1,date("Y"))); => 02-2016

edited Mar 08 '19 at 09:57

answered Mar 30 '16 at 13:42

Fury

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I would upvote if you remove echo sprintf("%02d",date("m")-1) . date("-Y"); => 02-2016. If we are in january, it answers month 0 of this year, not 12 of last year ! – Tama Jul 31 '19 at 13:33
very correct answer, all other answers brings thirty days from today – Nasz Njoka Sr. Dec 08 '22 at 08:45

score 20 · Answer 4 · answered Dec 11 '09 at 17:55

20

$prevmonth = date('M Y', strtotime("last month"));

answered Dec 11 '09 at 17:55

Scharrels

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This is the same as date('M Y', strtotime("-1 month")), if you do something like date('M Y', strtotime("2017-07-31 last month")) it will return 2017-07-01, so be careful! date('M Y', strtotime('2017-07-31 first day of previous month')) would give you what you want – Shadoweb Aug 01 '17 at 11:01

score 6 · Answer 5 · answered Jan 13 '13 at 07:38

6

if you want to get just previous month, then you can use as like following

$prevmonth = date('M Y', strtotime('-1 months'));

if you want to get same days of previous month, Then you can use as like following ..

$prevmonth = date('M Y d', strtotime('-1 months'));

if you want to get last date of previous month , Then you can use as like following ...

$prevmonth = date('M Y t', strtotime('-1 months'));

if you want to get first date of previous month , Then you can use as like following ...

$prevmonth = date('M Y 1', strtotime('-1 months'));

answered Jan 13 '13 at 07:38

Md. Maruf Hossain

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Be careful for the 31st of the month! It will give you the 1st of the current month! See above. – Shadoweb Aug 01 '17 at 11:02
Doesn't work if the day is 31st of the month, strtotime("first day of -1 month") it works perfectly – Adnen Chouibi Oct 31 '21 at 14:22

Jay_69 · Answer 6 · 2012-03-30T07:58:39.710

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Found this one wrong when the previous months is shorter than current.

echo date("Y-m-d H:i:s",strtotime("-1 month"));

Try on March the 30th and you will get 2012-03-01 instead of 2012-02...

Working out on better solution...

edited Mar 30 '12 at 07:58

answered Mar 30 '12 at 07:38

Jay_69

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This answer is correct (-1 month won't work properly in all cases). For the previous month, use strtotime('last month'). – Mike Mar 30 '12 at 09:52
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Last month or -1 month returns the same value. – Etienne Dupuis Mar 30 '16 at 19:58
Doesn't work if the day is 31st of the month, strtotime("first day of -1 month") it works perfectly – Adnen Chouibi Oct 31 '21 at 14:22

score 6 · Answer 7 · edited Jan 10 '18 at 13:40

6

echo date('Y',strtotime("-1 year"));        //last year<br>
echo date('d',strtotime("-1 day"));     //last day<br>
echo date('m',strtotime("-1 month"));       //last month<br>

edited Jan 10 '18 at 13:40

Shafiqul Islam

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answered Mar 30 '12 at 09:29

Vaishu

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This answer is not correct when the current date is 2018/03/31. Detail also like [this](https://stackoverflow.com/a/36310666/6351894) – Ngoc Nam Mar 30 '18 at 16:45

score 4 · Answer 8 · answered Apr 19 '12 at 07:33

4

public function getLastMonth() {
    $now = new DateTime();
    $lastMonth = $now->sub(new DateInterval('P1M'));
    return $lastMonth->format('Ym');
}

answered Apr 19 '12 at 07:33

1

Wont work for `2015-10-31` in PHP 5.5 and 5.6.11. You will get `201510` - same behavior as with `strtotime('- 1 month)`. – pmayer Nov 03 '15 at 12:35

score 2 · Answer 9 · edited Oct 20 '12 at 01:04

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Use this short code to get previous month for any given date:

$tgl = '25 january 2012';

$prevmonth = date("M Y",mktime(0,0,0,date("m", strtotime($tgl))-1,1,date("Y", strtotime($tgl))));
echo $prevmonth;

The result is December 2011. Works on a month with shorter day with previous month.

edited Oct 20 '12 at 01:04

Abdul Rahman

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answered May 31 '12 at 10:00

abdul

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score 2 · Answer 10 · answered Aug 26 '15 at 05:46

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$lastMonth = date('M Y', strtotime("-1 month"));
var_dump($lastMonth);
$lastMonth = date('M Y', mktime(0, 0, 0, date('m') - 1, 1, date('Y')));
var_dump($lastMonth);

answered Aug 26 '15 at 05:46

bloody numen

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While code itself can be somewhat self explanatory, it is helpful to other users to explain your answer rather than just giving code. – Turnerj Aug 26 '15 at 08:24

score 2 · Answer 11 · edited Sep 02 '20 at 14:03

2

Simply get last month.

Example:

Today is: 2020-09-02

Code:

echo date('Y-m-d', strtotime(date('Y-m-d')." -1 month"));

Result:

2020-08-02

edited Sep 02 '20 at 14:03

xKobalt

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answered Sep 02 '20 at 10:16

SL-phpdeveloper

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Welcome to StackOverflow! Probably, you should also consider to explain what happens if the day is `31` and the month is not January or August (like `2020 May 31` becomes `2020 April 31`, that does not exist) – xKobalt Sep 02 '20 at 13:19
php builtin function "date", handle it. – SL-phpdeveloper Nov 06 '20 at 11:09

score 1 · Answer 12 · edited May 09 '12 at 00:56

1

Oh I figured this out, please ignore unless you have the same problem i did in which case:

$prevmonth = date("M Y",mktime(0,0,0,date("m")-1,1,date("Y")));

edited May 09 '12 at 00:56

Taryn

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answered Dec 11 '09 at 17:55

pg.

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score 1 · Answer 13 · answered Dec 11 '09 at 17:55

1

You can use strtotime, which is great in this kind of situations :

$timestamp = strtotime('-1 month');
var_dump(date('Y-m', $timestamp));

Will get you :

string '2009-11' (length=7)

answered Dec 11 '09 at 17:55

Pascal MARTIN

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score 1 · Answer 14 · answered Nov 03 '14 at 18:32

This question is quite old but here goes anyway. If you're trying to get just the previous month and the day does not matter you can use this:

$date = '2014-01-03';

$dateTime = new DateTime($date);

$lastMonth = $dateTime->modify('-' . $dateTime->format('d') . ' days')->format('F Y');

echo $lastMonth; // 'December 2013'

score 1 · Answer 15 · answered Jul 14 '20 at 21:19

The best solution I have found is this:

function subtracMonth($currentMonth, $monthsToSubtract){
        $finalMonth = $currentMonth;
        for($i=0;$i<$monthsToSubtract;$i++) {
            $finalMonth--;
            if ($finalMonth=='0'){
                $finalMonth = '12';
            }

        }
        return $finalMonth;

    }

So if we are in 3(March) and we want to subtract 5 months that would be

subtractMonth(3,5);

which would give 10(October). If the year is also desired, one could do this:

function subtracMonth($currentMonth, $monthsToSubtract){
    $finalMonth = $currentMonth;
    $totalYearsToSubtract = 0;
    for($i=0;$i<$monthsToSubtract;$i++) {
        $finalMonth--;
        if ($finalMonth=='0'){
            $finalMonth = '12';
            $totalYearsToSubtract++;
        }

    }
    //Get $currentYear
    //Calculate $finalYear = $currentYear - $totalYearsToSubtract 
    //Put resulting $finalMonth and $finalYear into an object as attributes
    //Return the object

}

score 1 · Answer 16 · edited Mar 30 '12 at 09:40

1

$time = mktime(0, 0, 0, date("m"),date("d")-date("t"), date("Y"));
$lastMonth = date("d-m-Y", $time);

OR

$lastMonth = date("m-Y", mktime() - 31*3600*24);

works on 30.03.2012

edited Mar 30 '12 at 09:40

Juan Mellado

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answered Mar 30 '12 at 09:34

Paul

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score 0 · Answer 17 · edited Feb 17 '14 at 10:39

0

If you want to get first date of previous month , Then you can use as like following ... $prevmonth = date('M Y 1', strtotime('-1 months')); what? first date will always be 1 :D

edited Feb 17 '14 at 10:39

Tony Stark

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answered Oct 04 '13 at 11:20

user2846324

1

October 31, 2012. Returns 2012-10-01 – Akira Yamamoto Mar 07 '19 at 23:18

score 0 · Answer 18 · answered Mar 31 '12 at 16:27

0

It works for me:

Today is: 31/03/2012

echo date("Y-m-d", strtotime(date('m', mktime() - 31*3600*24).'/01/'.date('Y').' 00:00:00')); // 2012-02-01
echo  date("Y-m-d", mktime() - 31*3600*24); // 2012-02-29

answered Mar 31 '12 at 16:27

Yiannis Christodoulou

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In only works in 58.3(3)% of cases. What about February, April, Jun, September and November? They do not have 31 days. – Taz Oct 26 '12 at 14:42

Getting last month's date in php

18 Answers18

Example:

Linked