---
title: "“Date Created” field is inaccurate"
date: 2026-04-23
updated: 2026-10-06
author: "GravityKit"
link: "https://www.gravitykit.com/docs/gravityview/common-problems/date-created-field-is-inaccurate/"
category: "GravityView > Common Problems"
---

Gravity Forms stores the entry creation date in UTC. GravityView converts it to your site's timezone before showing it, so a Date Created field that looks a few hours out is almost always a timezone setting rather than a bug.

## Check the site timezone first

Go to **Settings > General** in your WordPress dashboard and check the Timezone field. If it is left at UTC, entry dates are shown in UTC, which is what most "the date is wrong" reports turn out to be. Pick a city in your timezone rather than a UTC offset, so daylight saving is handled for you.

## Showing the stored UTC value instead

If you want the raw value as Gravity Forms stored it, with no timezone conversion, add a **Custom Content** field to your View and use the `raw` modifier on the merge tag:

```
{date_created:raw}
```

On a site set to New York time, an entry stored as `2026-08-26 08:11:41` shows as *August 26, 2026 at 4:11 am* in a Date Created field, and as `2026-08-26 08:11:41` through that merge tag.

**Warning**: older versions of this page recommended `gravityview_date_created_adjust_timezone` for this. That filter no longer changes how a date is displayed. In current versions it only affects how dates entered in the Search Bar are converted for the query, which is why it was renamed to `gk/gravityview/search/date/adjust-timezone`. Adding it will not change your Date Created field.

## Searching by Entry Date

Searching is separate from displaying, and it does not follow the site timezone. Entry dates are stored in UTC, and an Entry Date search compares the date a visitor enters against that stored UTC value without converting it. On a site several hours from UTC, a search for a single day can therefore include or miss entries near midnight.

The `gk/gravityview/search/date/adjust-timezone` filter controls this, and it is **off by default**. Returning `true` from it makes the Search Bar convert the entered date to the site's timezone before querying, which is what you want when a day-long search should mean a day in local time. The filter also receives the context it was called from, so the behavior can differ per context.

## Changing how the date looks

The format is a per-field setting, not a global one. In the View editor, hover the Date Created field, click the gear icon, and set **Date Format** using [PHP date formatting](https://wordpress.org/documentation/article/customize-date-and-time-format/). Leaving it empty uses the format from Settings > General.

Related: [Deprecated and renamed hooks](https://www.gravitykit.com/docs/gravityview/advanced/renamed-filters-methods-in-2-14/).