On a business letter, the date goes near the top of the page, about two inches down from the top edge. Its horizontal position depends on the format you’re using: in full block format it sits flush with the left margin, and in modified block format it starts at a tab near the center of the page. Either way, the date comes after any letterhead or sender address and before the recipient’s inside address.
Horizontal Placement by Format
Full block is the most common layout for everyday business correspondence. Every element, including the date, starts at the left margin. Nothing is centered or tabbed over.
Modified block shifts the date, the closing, and the signature block to the right. The standard approach is a tab at the center of the page or slightly past it. On a standard 8.5-inch page with one-inch margins, that puts the starting point around the 3.25- to 4-inch mark. The inside address, salutation, and body paragraphs stay left-aligned, which creates the visual contrast some organizations prefer for formal letters.
Semi-block handles the date the same way modified block does; only the body paragraphs change, picking up a half-inch indent.
Vertical Placement and Spacing
With preprinted letterhead, position the date about two to three lines below the bottom of the printed header. Some style guides specify two inches from the top edge of the page, which produces roughly the same result on most designs. If the letter is short, you can drop the date a few lines lower so the text fills the page more evenly.
After the date, leave one to two blank lines before the inside address. One is standard. Going beyond two starts to look like a gap.
Letters Without Letterhead
When there’s no preprinted or digital letterhead, your own address goes at the very top of the page, and the date appears on the next line directly below it. In full block, both the address and the date sit at the left margin. In modified block, both start at the center tab. This comes up most often with cover letters and other personal business letters sent from a home address.
Which Date to Write
Use the date you finish the letter, not the date you started drafting it. If you write on Monday and finalize on Wednesday, Wednesday’s date goes on the page. The reader should see an accurate timestamp for the version in front of them.
Backdating or postdating is risky. The date on correspondence becomes part of the factual record in any situation that could lead to a dispute. Demand letters, cease-and-desist notices, contract proposals, and termination letters all carry weight partly because of when they were sent, and an inaccurate date can undermine your credibility if the timeline is ever scrutinized.
How to Format the Date
In the United States, write the month out in full, followed by the day, a comma, and the four-digit year: January 15, 2026. Avoid “Jan.” and avoid the all-numeric version “1/15/2026.” The abbreviated forms read as informal, and the numeric form creates ambiguity for international readers, who may read 1/15 as the fifteenth month.
In British English and most of the rest of the world, the day comes first with no comma: 15 January 2026. If you’re writing to someone outside the United States, this format follows local expectations and avoids confusion.
You may also see ISO 8601, which reads 2026-01-15. That format was designed for databases and file names, not for letters people read. Stick with the written-out form for anything addressed to a human being.
Multi-Page Letters
When a letter runs past the first page, the date reappears in a continuation header at the top of each additional page, alongside the recipient’s name and the page number. You can stack the three elements vertically in the upper-left corner:
- Jane Rodriguez
- Page 2
- January 15, 2026
Or spread them across the top, with the name at the left, the page number centered, and the date at the right. Either works. The point is that every page beyond the first carries the date, so a loose page can be matched back to its letter.
A Note on Email
Email clients stamp every message with an automatic date and time, so a separate date line inside the body of a routine business email is unnecessary. Most skip it, and that’s fine.
The exception is a formal letter sent as a PDF attachment or pasted into the body of an email. The letter itself should still carry a date line in the standard position, because the attachment may be printed, forwarded, or filed separately from the message that delivered it. Without its own date, the letter loses context the moment it leaves the inbox.