NOW function

Overview

NOW returns the current date and time as a serial number. The integer part represents the date and the fractional part represents the time of day.

IronCalc extension

The optional timezone argument is an IronCalc extension. Excel, Google Sheets, and LibreOffice Calc do not support it.

Usage

Syntax

NOW([timezone]) => serial_number

Argument descriptions

• timezone (text, optional). An IANA timezone name (e.g. "America/New_York", "Europe/Paris", "Asia/Tokyo"). When provided, NOW returns the current time in that timezone instead of the workbook's timezone. See Regional Settings for more details on timezones.

Additional guidance

• When called with no argument, NOW uses the workbook's timezone setting.
• The fractional part of the returned serial number encodes the time of day: for example, 0.5 represents noon (12:00:00).
• Unlike TODAY(), which returns only an integer date serial, NOW returns a number with a fractional component representing the current time.
• NOW recalculates every time the workbook recalculates.

Returned value

NOW returns a number — a date-time serial number where the integer part is the date and the fractional part is the time.

Error conditions

• If more than one argument is supplied, NOW returns the #ERROR! error.
• If the timezone argument is not a text value, NOW returns the #VALUE! error.
• If the timezone argument is not a valid IANA timezone name, NOW returns the #VALUE! error.

Examples

Formula	Result	Comment
=NOW()	46000.52	Current date and time in the workbook's timezone (example)
=NOW("America/New_York")	46000.35	Same moment in New York time
=NOW("Asia/Tokyo")	46001.02	Same moment in Tokyo time
=INT(NOW())	46000	Today's date serial (equivalent to TODAY())
=NOW()-TODAY()	0.52	Fraction of the day elapsed (example: ~12:30)

Links

• See also IronCalc's TODAY function, which returns the current date without a time component.
• See Regional Settings for information on workbook timezones.
• Visit Microsoft Excel's NOW function page (note: Excel's NOW takes no arguments).
• Both Google Sheets and LibreOffice Calc provide versions of the NOW function (without the timezone argument).