Handlebars Helper Function: dateDiff

Calculates the time difference between two dates and returns the result in a specified unit. Use this helper to determine elapsed time in years, months, days, hours, minutes, or seconds.

This helper is available in the Summer ’26 release of Marketing Cloud Next.

1{{dateDiff date1 date2 interval [version="ampscript"]}}

You can specify date1 and date2 in these formats:

• US formats: MM/dd/yyyy, M/d/yyyy, MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss, M/d/yyyy h:mm a, or M/d/yyyy h:mm:ss a

• ISO formats: yyyy-MM-dd, yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss, yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss, or yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSSZ

• 12-hour time: M/d/yyyy h:mm a, yyyy-MM-dd h:mm a, or yyyy-MM-dd h:mm:ss a

• Time-only: h:mm a or h:mm:ss a

  If you specify only a time, the helper function uses the current date.

  Note

• Long-form English: d MMMM yyyy, MMMM d, yyyy, or EEEE, MMMM d, yyyy

• Chinese or Japanese notation: yyyy年M月d日

• Korean notation: yyyy년 M월 d일 or yyyy년M월d일

The function returns an integer corresponding to the amount of time that elapsed between date1 and date2. For example, {{dateDiff 2025-12-26 2026-01-05 "D"}} returns 10, because there is a difference of ten days between the two dates.

The function counts complete elapsed units and truncates partial units. For example, {{dateDiff "2025-01-31" "2025-02-02" "M"}} returns 0, because there isn’t a full month between the two dates, even though they crossed a month boundary (from January to February).

In AMPScript mode (version="ampscript"), the function counts interval boundaries crossed between the two dates. For example, {{dateDiff "2025-01-31" "2025-02-02" "M" version="ampscript"}} returns 1, because the dates cross a month boundary, even though the two dates are only 2 days apart.