PostgreSQL · sdk · fg-0273

node-postgres shifts DATE and TIMESTAMP values by the Node process timezone

A DATE of 2017-05-29 comes back as 2017-05-29T05:00:00.000Z in a process running at UTC-5

Verified 2026-10-15 · Confirmed by 0 builders · Trust 50/100

Cause

pg turns DATE and TIMESTAMP WITHOUT TIME ZONE values into JavaScript Date objects at local time in the Node process zone (the TZ variable), and formats Date parameters in that zone on the way in. Parsing DATE into a Date is kept only for backward compatibility.

Fix

Store instants as timestamptz, run Node with TZ=UTC, and keep DATE values as plain strings.

Apply

import pg from 'pg'
pg.types.setTypeParser(1082, (v) => v) // DATE stays 'YYYY-MM-DD'
// start the process with TZ=UTC

Affects: pg (node-postgres) 8.x, as of October 2026

Sources

• https://github.com/brianc/node-postgres/blob/master/docs/pages/features/types.mdx
• https://github.com/brianc/node-postgres/issues/783

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