Date and Time Questions in Google Forms: Setup Guide
Quick answer: Add a question, set its type to Date or Time, then use the three-dot menu to include the year, add a time alongside the date, or switch between Time of day and Duration. Both render as a native picker on desktop and mobile. One honest limit: Google Forms can't restrict a Date question to a specific range natively — you'd need a Short answer question with regex validation for that.
Date and Time are two of the more overlooked question types in Google Forms, but they're the right choice any time you need a structured date or time answer rather than free text — event registrations, appointment bookings, birthdate collection, or logging how long something took. Because they store real date/time data instead of a typed string, they also sort and filter correctly once responses land in a Sheet. This guide covers setup, common use cases, and where the built-in validation options fall short.
Adding a Date question
Click the + icon to add a new question, type your question text, and set the type to Date. By default it collects a month and day. Open the three-dot menu on the question to find two toggles:
- Include year — turn this on for anything where the year matters, like a birthdate or a specific event date. Leave it off for recurring annual questions where only the day matters, like an anniversary reminder.
- Include time — turn this on to collect a date and a time together in a single question, useful for appointment scheduling where you want both in one field instead of two separate questions.
On both desktop and mobile, the Date question renders a native calendar picker, which is far friendlier than asking someone to type a date into a text box and hoping the format matches what you expect.
Adding a Time question
Set a question's type to Time and use the three-dot menu to choose between two modes:
- Time of day — collects a specific clock time, like 2:00 PM. Use this for scheduling questions: "What time would you like your appointment?"
- Duration — collects an elapsed length in hours, minutes, and seconds rather than a point in time. Use this for logging how long something took, like "How long did the workout take?"
Common use cases
- Event registration — a Date question for "Which date will you attend?" when an event runs across multiple days, often paired with a Time question if sessions have specific start times. See our guide to Google Forms event registration for a full registration form walkthrough.
- Appointment booking — Date with "Include time" turned on, or separate Date and Time questions, depending on how much structure you want in the response Sheet.
- Birthdate collection — Date with "Include year" turned on. Leaving year off here would make the data useless for anything requiring an actual birthdate.
- Attendance and check-in logs — Time questions to record when someone checked in, which is easier to analyze later than a free-text time entry. See Google Forms attendance tracking for more on this pattern.
The date/time picker on mobile vs. desktop
On desktop, Date and Time questions open a compact calendar or clock-style picker inline in the browser. On mobile, they typically hand off to the device's native date or time picker — the same wheel or calendar UI you'd see in any other mobile app — which tends to be quicker to use with a thumb than typing. This is one of the more mobile-friendly question types in Forms precisely because it defers to the platform's own picker instead of building a custom one.
How responses appear and sort in the Sheet
When you connect a form to a Google Sheet, Date and Time responses land as properly formatted date or time values, not plain text. That means you can sort a column of event-date responses chronologically, filter for a specific date range, or run date-math formulas directly on the column without first having to parse or reformat the text.
The honest limit: no native date-range restriction
One thing worth knowing before you rely on it: Google Forms does not let you set a minimum or maximum allowed date on the Date question type itself. There's no "only allow dates between X and Y" setting built into Date questions, unlike Short answer questions, which do support number and length validation. If you truly need to restrict responses to a specific date range, the only built-in workaround is to swap in a Short answer question and apply Response validation with a regular expression that matches your expected date format — but this is more brittle and less friendly than a real date picker, since it can check the format of what's typed but can't easily enforce a range through the picker UI. See our guide to Google Forms response validation for how that validation option works and where its limits are.
In practice, most forms are better off using the native Date question and handling any out-of-range submissions after the fact — by reviewing responses in the Sheet — rather than fighting the platform to enforce a strict range up front.
FAQ
Can I include the year in a Google Forms Date question?
Yes, toggle "Include year" in the question's three-dot menu. It's off by default in some presets, so turn it on for anything like a birthdate.
What's the difference between Duration and Time of day?
Time of day collects a specific clock time, useful for scheduling. Duration collects an elapsed length, useful for logging how long an activity took.
Can Google Forms restrict a Date question to a specific range?
Not natively. The Date question type has no min/max date setting. The only workaround is a Short answer question with regex-based response validation, which is more limited than a real picker.
How do date and time responses appear in the linked Sheet?
As properly formatted date/time values in their own column, which sort and filter correctly rather than being stored as plain text.