--- title: What will happen on January 19, 2038? | daily.dev description: On January 19, 2038 at 3:14:07 AM, the Unix timestamp will reach the maximum value of a signed 32-bit integer (2,147,483,647). After that point, the value... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/what-will-happen-on-january-19-2038--htwrmxwte twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: What will happen on January 19, 2038? | daily.dev og:description: On January 19, 2038 at 3:14:07 AM, the Unix timestamp will reach the maximum value of a signed 32-bit integer (2,147,483,647). After that point, the value... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/what-will-happen-on-january-19-2038--htwrmxwte og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/HtwrmXWTE.png og:image:alt: What will happen on January 19, 2038? og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # What will happen on January 19, 2038? **[Code Monkey](https://daily.dev/sources/codemonkeyunity)** · 2 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary On January 19, 2038 at 3:14:07 AM, the Unix timestamp will reach the maximum value of a signed 32-bit integer (2,147,483,647). After that point, the value overflows and wraps back to negative numbers, causing systems to think the date is back in 1970. This is analogous to the Y2K bug. The fix is straightforward: replace 32-bit int storage for timestamps with either an unsigned integer (extending to ~2106) or a 64-bit long integer (effectively unlimited). Any software still storing Unix timestamps as signed 32-bit integers needs to be updated before 2038. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Open-Source Community Tackling Y2K38 Epoch](https://daily.dev/posts/open-source-community-tackling-y2k38-epoch-gkcwnd3wn) · openSUSE · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [A Very Fast 64–Bit Date Algorithm: 30-40% faster](https://daily.dev/posts/a-very-fast-64-bit-date-algorithm-30-40-faster-ujuth5oxm) · Hacker News · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [September 21, 2026](https://daily.dev/posts/september-21-2026-bxetzqeen) · DevBlogs · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/what-will-happen-on-january-19-2038--htwrmxwte) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"What will happen on January 19, 2038?","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/what-will-happen-on-january-19-2038--htwrmxwte","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/what-will-happen-on-january-19-2038--htwrmxwte"},"datePublished":"2026-07-18T14:12:11.570Z","dateModified":"2026-07-18T14:12:27.617Z","description":"On January 19, 2038 at 3:14:07 AM, the Unix timestamp will reach the maximum value of a signed 32-bit integer (2,147,483,647). 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