This template also returns the date, hidden by CSS, in the ISO 8601 format needed by one or more of the following microformats:

usually, but not always, within infobox or similar templates, or tables.

Its use in hCard is for organisations, venues and similar; use {{Birth date}} or {{Birth date and age}} for people.

Similarly, {{End date}} returns the date as hCalendar's (class="dtend"). For example:

(<span class="dtstart updated">1993-02-24</span>) and (<span class="dtstart updated">1993-02-24T08:30</span>)

and:

(<span class="dtend">1993-02-24T08:30</span>)

(disable CSS or view source to see the hidden ISO-formatted output).

Note: due to the requirement exclusive "dtend" in hCalendar, and the accessibility problems that presents when a date is rendered (as seen without CSS) as 28 March 1999 (1999-03-29) or even 28 February 1999 (1999-03-01) or 31 December 1999 (2000-01-01), the Date end template should not be used for whole-day dates and should have a time of 23:59:59.

See the microformats project for further details.

Limitation

This template has no provision to deal with a date in a non-Gregorian calendar. Also, ISO 8601 requires mutual agreement among those exchanging information before using years outside the range 1583–9999 CE. Therefore, use of this template for non-Gregorian dates or dates outside that range constitutes a false claim of conformance to the ISO 8601 standard.

Any editor encountering such usage should change the date to plain text with no template; or if not confident in doing so, raise the matter on this template's talk page.