Joda-Time Create UTC DateTime in Java

In this Joda-Time tutorial, we learn how to create a DateTime object to represent date and time in Universal Coordinated Time (UTC) time zone in Java.

Add Joda Time library to your Java project

To use Joda Time Java library in the Gradle build project, add the following dependency into the build.gradle file.

compile group: 'joda-time', name: 'joda-time', version: '2.10.9'

To use Joda Time Java library in the Maven build project, add the following dependency into the pom.xml file.

<dependency>
    <groupId>joda-time</groupId>
    <artifactId>joda-time</artifactId>
    <version>2.10.9</version>
</dependency>

To download the Joda Time .jar file you can visit Joda Time releases page at github.com/JodaOrg/joda-time

Create Current DateTime in UTC using DateTime.now() static method

DateTimeNowUTC.java

import org.joda.time.DateTime;
import org.joda.time.DateTimeZone;

public class DateTimeNowUTC {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        DateTime now = DateTime.now(DateTimeZone.UTC);

        System.out.println("UTC Now: " + now);
    }
}

The output is:

UTC Now: 2021-01-17T09:46:58.189Z

Create Current DateTime in UTC using default constructor

DateTimeUTCFromConstructor.java

import org.joda.time.DateTime;
import org.joda.time.DateTimeZone;

public class DateTimeUTCFromConstructor {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        DateTime now = new DateTime(DateTimeZone.UTC);

        System.out.println("UTC Now: " + now);
    }
}

The output is:

UTC Now: 2021-01-17T09:47:16.930Z

Create DateTime in UTC from milliseconds

DateTimeMillisecondsUTC.java

import org.joda.time.DateTime;
import org.joda.time.DateTimeZone;

public class DateTimeMillisecondsUTC {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        long currentTimeInMilliseconds = System.currentTimeMillis();

        DateTime dateTime = new DateTime(currentTimeInMilliseconds, DateTimeZone.UTC);

        System.out.println("Current time in milliseconds: " + currentTimeInMilliseconds);
        System.out.println("DateTime UTC: " + dateTime);
    }
}

The output is:

Current time in milliseconds: 1610876844911
DateTime UTC: 2021-01-17T09:47:24.911Z

Create DateTime in UTC from specified date and time

DateTimeUTC.java

import org.joda.time.DateTime;
import org.joda.time.DateTimeZone;

public class DateTimeUTC {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        int year = 2022;
        int monthOfYear = 1;
        int dayOfMonth = 1;
        int hourOfDay = 1;
        int minuteOfHour = 9;
        int secondOfMinute = 0;

        DateTime dateTime = new DateTime(year, monthOfYear, dayOfMonth, hourOfDay, minuteOfHour, secondOfMinute, DateTimeZone.UTC);

        System.out.println("DateTime UTC: " + dateTime);
    }
}