How to Get Epoch Timestamps in Go

Epoch Timestamps in Go

Go's time package provides clean, explicit methods for working with Unix timestamps. Go supports seconds, milliseconds, microseconds, and nanoseconds precision.

Getting the Current Epoch

package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "time"
)

func main() {
    now := time.Now()

    // Seconds
    fmt.Println(now.Unix())       // 1705312200

    // Milliseconds
    fmt.Println(now.UnixMilli())  // 1705312200000

    // Microseconds
    fmt.Println(now.UnixMicro())  // 1705312200000000

    // Nanoseconds
    fmt.Println(now.UnixNano())   // 1705312200000000000
}

Converting Epoch to time.Time

// From seconds
t := time.Unix(1705312200, 0)
fmt.Println(t.UTC())  // 2024-01-15 09:30:00 +0000 UTC

// From milliseconds
t = time.UnixMilli(1705312200000)

// From nanoseconds
t = time.Unix(0, 1705312200000000000)

Formatting

Go uses a unique reference time layout: Mon Jan 2 15:04:05 MST 2006

t := time.Unix(1705312200, 0).UTC()

// ISO 8601
fmt.Println(t.Format(time.RFC3339))
// "2024-01-15T09:30:00Z"

// Custom format
fmt.Println(t.Format("2006-01-02 15:04:05"))
// "2024-01-15 09:30:00"

Countdown Calculation

target := time.Date(2025, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, time.UTC)
remaining := time.Until(target)

days := int(remaining.Hours()) / 24
hours := int(remaining.Hours()) % 24
minutes := int(remaining.Minutes()) % 60
seconds := int(remaining.Seconds()) % 60

fmt.Printf("%dd %dh %dm %ds\n", days, hours, minutes, seconds)

Best Practices

• Always use time.UTC() when converting to/from epoch to avoid timezone bugs
• Use time.Unix() for seconds, time.UnixMilli() for milliseconds — never multiply manually
• Go's zero value for time.Time is January 1, year 1, not the Unix epoch
• Use time.Duration for intervals rather than raw integer arithmetic