In this quick article, you will learn how to get current timestamp in Java.

Using Instant Class

In Java 8 and higher, timestamps are represented using java.time.Instant class from Java 8 new date and time API. An Instant represents a specific moment on the timeline in UTC.

To get the current Instant object from the system clock, you can do the following:

Instant now = Instant.now();
// 2019-12-23T09:06:32.071Z

Instant.now() returns the current moment on the timeline since the first second of January 1, 1970 UTC/Greenwich (1970-01-01 00:00:00).

Alternatively, you can also convert an instance of java.sql.Timestamp to Instant (not recommended) as shown below:

Timestamp timestamp = new Timestamp(System.currentTimeMillis());
Instant now = timestamp.toInstant();

Another way to create an Instant is by using the java.util.Date class:

Date date = new Date();
Instant now = date.toInstant();

Check out How to get the current date and time in Java guide for more new date and time API examples.

Using Timestamp Class

In Java 7 and below, you can use the java.sql.Timestamp class to get current timestamps:

Timestamp timestamp = new Timestamp(System.currentTimeMillis());
// 2019-12-23 14:21:51.068

Alternatively, you can also convert an instance of Date to a Timestamp object:

Date date = new Date();
Timestamp timestamp = new Timestamp(date.getTime());

Further Reading

You may be interested in reading the following Java date and time tutorials:

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