You're standing at a hotel desk in Madrid or maybe a tiny cafecito in Mexico City, and you need to fill out a form. Or maybe you're just trying to be polite. You know the words for numbers. You know the months. But when you try to say what's today's date in spanish, your brain suddenly freezes because the word order feels backwards.
It happens.
Actually, it happens a lot. Most English speakers try to translate "January 17th" directly, and they end up saying something that sounds incredibly clunky to a native speaker. Spanish is elegant, but it's also very strict about how it handles time. If you want to sound like a local—or at least like someone who didn't just use a broken translation app—you have to flip your perspective.
Today is sábado, 17 de enero de 2026.
Look at that for a second. There’s no "th" after the seventeen. There’s no comma after the month. It’s a completely different rhythm.
The Core Formula You’ll Actually Use
If you want the quick answer, the skeleton of the date is: el [number] de [month] de [year].
That's it.
You don't need to overthink it. If someone asks you "¿Cuál es la fecha de hoy?" you just drop the numbers into those slots. For today, you'd say "Hoy es el diecisiete de enero."
Wait.
There is one massive exception that trips everyone up. If it’s the first of the month, you don't say "el uno." Well, you can, and people will understand you, but it sounds "off." In most Spanish-speaking countries, particularly Mexico, you use the ordinal number: el primero.
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El primero de enero. El primero de mayo.
After you get past the first day of the month, you switch back to regular cardinal numbers. Two is dos, three is tres, and so on. It’s a weird little quirk of the language that separates the beginners from the intermediate speakers. Honestly, it's one of those things where if you get it right, people immediately assume your Spanish is better than it actually is.
Writing it Down Without Looking Like a Tourist
We need to talk about the slashes. In the United States, we are obsessed with the Month/Day/Year format. It’s 1/17/2026.
Don't do that in Spain or Latin America.
If you write 1/12 in the States, it's January 12th. In the Spanish-speaking world, that is December 1st. You can imagine the chaos this causes with flight bookings, doctor appointments, or expiration dates on milk. The format is always Day/Month/Year.
It’s logical. You go from the smallest unit (day) to the medium unit (month) to the largest unit (year).
Why the "De" Matters So Much
You noticed there are two "de"s in the full date, right? 17 de enero de 2026. In English, we say "January 17th." We don't say "the 17th of January" very often because it sounds formal, like something out of a Victorian novel or a legal document.
In Spanish, that "of" (de) is mandatory.
You can’t skip it. If you say "diecisiete enero," it sounds like you're a robot running low on batteries. It’s choppy. The de acts as the glue.
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And here’s another thing: capitalization. In English, we capitalize months because we treat them as proper nouns. Spanish thinks that’s unnecessary work. Unless it’s the beginning of a sentence, months like enero, febrero, and marzo are always lowercase.
- enero (January)
- febrero (February)
- marzo (March)
- abril (April)
- mayo (May)
- junio (June)
- julio (July)
- agosto (August)
- septiembre (September)
- octubre (October)
- noviembre (November)
- diciembre (December)
Dealing With the Year
Saying the year in Spanish is where people usually start sweating. In English, we cheat. We say "twenty twenty-six." It’s two easy numbers.
Spanish doesn't let you cheat.
You have to say the whole number out loud. Dos mil veintiséis. Two thousand twenty-six. You can't say "veinte veintiséis." If you say that to a taxi driver, they’ll just look at you with a blank stare. It sounds like you're giving them a code or a phone number.
The Most Common Ways to Ask the Question
You’re not always the one giving the date; sometimes you’re the one who is lost. Maybe your phone died and you’re trying to fill out a customs form. You’ve got a few options for asking what's today's date in spanish, and they vary slightly in "vibes."
¿A cuántos estamos hoy? This one is super common in conversation. It literally translates to "at how many are we today?" It sounds weird in English, but it’s very natural in Spanish. You’d answer with "Estamos a diecisiete."
¿Qué fecha es hoy? This is the textbook version. It's direct. It's clear. It's what you'll see in most Spanish 101 books.
¿Cuál es la fecha de hoy? Slightly more formal, but perfectly fine.
Regional Differences Are Real
While the Day de Month de Year rule is pretty universal, the way people say it changes.
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In Spain, you might hear people use "en" occasionally for months, but "de" remains the king. In Argentina or Uruguay, the accent (voseo) might change the rhythm of the conversation around the date, but the structure holds firm.
The biggest regional hurdle isn't the grammar; it's the pronunciation of the numbers. If you're in the Caribbean, that "s" at the end of dos or tres might disappear. If you're in central Mexico, every syllable will be crisp.
A Quick Cheat Sheet for Days of the Week
You can't really talk about the date without knowing the day. Just like months, these are not capitalized in Spanish.
- lunes (Monday)
- martes (Tuesday)
- miércoles (Wednesday)
- jueves (Thursday)
- viernes (Friday)
- sábado (Saturday)
- domingo (Sunday)
If you want to say "On Saturday," you don't say "en sábado." You say el sábado. The article "el" does all the heavy lifting for "on."
Why Do We Even Care About This?
Learning what's today's date in spanish isn't just about passing a test. It's about respect.
When you use the American date format in a Spanish-speaking country, you’re basically forcing the local person to do mental gymnastics to figure out what you mean. It’s a small thing, but fixing it shows you’ve actually taken the time to understand how their world works.
Plus, it keeps you from missing your train. Seriously. I've seen people show up a month late for things because they misread a 5/6 as May 6th instead of June 5th.
Actionable Steps to Master the Date
Don't just read this and forget it. If you want to actually remember how to say the date, you need to bake it into your daily life.
- Change your phone settings. Switch your phone’s language to Spanish. You’ll see the date on your lock screen every single time you check a notification. It forces your brain to stop translating and start "seeing" the date in the correct order.
- Write it at the top of your notes. If you keep a journal or take notes at work, write the Spanish date at the top. 17 de enero. It takes three seconds.
- Say it when you wake up. Before you check your email, tell yourself what day it is. "Hoy es sábado, diecisiete de enero."
- Watch the "Primero" rule. This is the easiest one to mess up. Remind yourself every time a new month starts: it’s primero, not uno.
Learning a language is basically just a collection of small habits. The date is one of the most frequent habits you'll have. Get the "de" in there, keep the months lowercase, put the day before the month, and you'll sound like you actually know what you're doing.