How do I calculate the date six months from the current date using the datetime Python module?

I found this solution to be good. (This uses the python-dateutil extension)

from datetime import date
from dateutil.relativedelta import relativedelta

six_months = date.today() + relativedelta(months=+6)

The advantage of this approach is that it takes care of issues with 28, 30, 31 days etc. This becomes very useful in handling business rules and scenarios (say invoice generation etc.)

$ date(2010,12,31)+relativedelta(months=+1)
  datetime.date(2011, 1, 31)

$ date(2010,12,31)+relativedelta(months=+2)
  datetime.date(2011, 2, 28)

Well, that depends what you mean by 6 months from the current date.

1. Using natural months:

   inc = 6
   year = year + (month + inc - 1) // 12
   month = (month + inc - 1) % 12 + 1
   

2. Using a banker's definition, 6*30:

   date += datetime.timedelta(6 * 30)
   

With Python 3.x you can do it like this:

from datetime import datetime, timedelta
from dateutil.relativedelta import *

date = datetime.now()
print(date)
# 2018-09-24 13:24:04.007620

date = date + relativedelta(months=+6)
print(date)
# 2019-03-24 13:24:04.007620

but you will need to install python-dateutil module:

pip install python-dateutil

What do you mean by "6 months"?

Is 2009-02-13 + 6 months == 2009-08-13? Or is it 2009-02-13 + 6*30 days?

import mx.DateTime as dt

#6 Months
dt.now()+dt.RelativeDateTime(months=6)
#result is '2009-08-13 16:28:00.84'

#6*30 days
dt.now()+dt.RelativeDateTime(days=30*6)
#result is '2009-08-12 16:30:03.35'

More info about mx.DateTime

Python can use datautil package for that, Please see the example below

It's not Just limited to that, you can pass combination of days, Months and Years at the same time also.

import datetime
from dateutil.relativedelta import relativedelta

# subtract months
proc_dt = datetime.date(2021,8,31)
proc_dt_minus_3_months = proc_dt + relativedelta(months=-3)
print(proc_dt_minus_3_months)

# add months
proc_dt = datetime.date(2021,8,31)
proc_dt_plus_3_months = proc_dt + relativedelta(months=+3)
print(proc_dt_plus_3_months)

# subtract days:
proc_dt = datetime.date(2021,8,31)
proc_dt_minus_3_days = proc_dt + relativedelta(days=-3)
print(proc_dt_minus_3_days)

# add days days:
proc_dt = datetime.date(2021,8,31)
proc_dt_plus_3_days = proc_dt + relativedelta(days=+3)
print(proc_dt_plus_3_days)

# subtract years:
proc_dt = datetime.date(2021,8,31)
proc_dt_minus_3_years = proc_dt + relativedelta(years=-3)
print(proc_dt_minus_3_years)

# add years:
proc_dt = datetime.date(2021,8,31)
proc_dt_plus_3_years = proc_dt + relativedelta(years=+3)
print(proc_dt_plus_3_years)

Results:

2021-05-31

2021-11-30

2021-08-28

2021-09-03

2018-08-31

2024-08-31

There's no direct way to do it with Python's datetime.

Check out the relativedelta type at python-dateutil. It allows you to specify a time delta in months.

This doesn't answer the specific question (using datetime only) but, given that others suggested the use of different modules, here there is a solution using pandas.

import datetime as dt
import pandas as pd

date = dt.date.today() - \
       pd.offsets.DateOffset(months=6)

print(date)

2019-05-04 00:00:00

Which works as expected in leap years

date = dt.datetime(2019,8,29) - \
       pd.offsets.DateOffset(months=6)
print(date)

2019-02-28 00:00:00

Just use the timetuple method to extract the months, add your months and build a new dateobject. If there is a already existing method for this I do not know it.

import datetime

def in_the_future(months=1):
    year, month, day = datetime.date.today().timetuple()[:3]
    new_month = month + months
    return datetime.date(year + (new_month / 12), (new_month % 12) or 12, day)

The API is a bit clumsy, but works as an example. Will also obviously not work on corner-cases like 2008-01-31 + 1 month. :)

Using Python standard libraries, i.e. without dateutil or others, and solving the 'February 31st' problem:

import datetime
import calendar

def add_months(date, months):
    months_count = date.month + months

    # Calculate the year
    year = date.year + int(months_count / 12)

    # Calculate the month
    month = (months_count % 12)
    if month == 0:
        month = 12

    # Calculate the day
    day = date.day
    last_day_of_month = calendar.monthrange(year, month)[1]
    if day > last_day_of_month:
        day = last_day_of_month

    new_date = datetime.date(year, month, day)
    return new_date

Testing:

>>>date = datetime.date(2018, 11, 30)

>>>print(date, add_months(date, 3))
(datetime.date(2018, 11, 30), datetime.date(2019, 2, 28))

>>>print(date, add_months(date, 14))
(datetime.date(2018, 12, 31), datetime.date(2020, 2, 29))

Dateutil package has implementation of such functionality. But be aware, that this will be naive, as others pointed already.

A quick suggestion is Arrow

pip install arrow

>>> import arrow

>>> arrow.now().date()
datetime.date(2019, 6, 28)
>>> arrow.now().shift(months=6).date()
datetime.date(2019, 12, 28)

Modified Johannes Wei's answer in the case 1new_month = 121. This works perfectly for me. The months could be positive or negative.

def addMonth(d,months=1):
    year, month, day = d.timetuple()[:3]
    new_month = month + months
    return datetime.date(year + ((new_month-1) / 12), (new_month-1) % 12 +1, day)

Im chiming in late, but

check out Ken Reitz Maya module,

https://github.com/kennethreitz/maya

something like this may help you, just change hours=1 to days=1 or years=1

>>> from maya import MayaInterval

# Create an event that is one hour long, starting now.
>>> event_start = maya.now()
>>> event_end = event_start.add(hours=1)

>>> event = MayaInterval(start=event_start, end=event_end)

The "python-dateutil" (external extension) is a good solution, but you can do it with build-in Python modules (datetime and datetime)

I made a short and simple code, to solve it (dealing with year, month and day)

(running: Python 3.8.2)

from datetime import datetime
from calendar import monthrange

# Time to increase (in months)
inc = 12

# Returns mod of the division for 12 (months)
month = ((datetime.now().month + inc) % 12) or 1

# Increase the division by 12 (months), if necessary (+ 12 months increase)
year = datetime.now().year + int((month + inc) / 12)

# (IF YOU DON'T NEED DAYS,CAN REMOVE THE BELOW CODE)
# Returns the same day in new month, or the maximum day of new month
day = min(datetime.now().day,monthrange(year, month)[1])

print("Year: {}, Month: {}, Day: {}".format(year, month, day))

I often need last day of month to remain last day of month. To solve that I add one day before calculation and then subtract it again before return.

from datetime import date, timedelta

# it's a lot faster with a constant day
DAY = timedelta(1)

def add_month(a_date, months):
    "Add months to date and retain last day in month."
    next_day = a_date + DAY
    # calculate new year and month
    m_sum = next_day.month + months - 1
    y = next_day.year + m_sum // 12
    m = m_sum % 12 + 1
    try:
        return date(y, m, next_day.day) - DAY
    except ValueError:
        # on fail return last day in month
        # can't fail on december so I don't bother changing the year
        return date(y, m + 1, 1) - DAY

This is what I came up with. It moves the correct number of months and years but ignores days (which was what I needed in my situation).

import datetime

month_dt = 4
today = datetime.date.today()
y,m = today.year, today.month
m += month_dt-1
year_dt = m//12
new_month = m%12
new_date = datetime.date(y+year_dt, new_month+1, 1)

I think it would be safer to do something like this instead of manually adding days:

import datetime
today = datetime.date.today()

def addMonths(dt, months = 0):
    new_month = months + dt.month
    year_inc = 0
    if new_month>12:
        year_inc +=1
        new_month -=12
    return dt.replace(month = new_month, year = dt.year+year_inc)

newdate = addMonths(today, 6)

I solved this problem like this:

import calendar
from datetime import datetime
moths2add = 6
now = datetime.now()
current_year = now.year
current_month = now.month
#count days in months you want to add using calendar module
days = sum(
  [calendar.monthrange(current_year, elem)[1] for elem in range(current_month, current_month + moths)]
    )
print now + days

I used the replace() method and write this recursive function. the dt is a datetime.datetime object:

def month_timedelta(dt, m):
    y = m // 12
    dm = m % 12
    if y == 0:
        if dt.month + m <= 12:
            return dt.replace(month = dt.month + m)
        else:
            dy = (dt.month + m) // 12
            ndt = dt.replace(year=dt.year + dy)
            return ndt.replace(month=(ndt.month + m) % 12)
    else:
        return month_timedelta(dt.replace(year=dt.year + y),dm)

My implementation based on taleinat's answer:

import datetime
import calendar

def add_months(orig_date, month_count = 1):
    while month_count > 12:
        month_count -= 12
        orig_date = add_months(orig_date, 12)
    new_year = orig_date.year
    new_month = orig_date.month + month_count
    # note: in datetime.date, months go from 1 to 12
    if new_month > 12:
        new_year += 1
        new_month -= 12

    last_day_of_month = calendar.monthrange(new_year, new_month)[1]
    new_day = min(orig_date.day, last_day_of_month)

    return orig_date.replace(year=new_year, month=new_month, day=new_day)

With this function you can add as many months as you'd like.

from datetime import date
dt = date(2021, 1, 31)

print(add_months(dt, 49))

returns 2025-02-28

I know that there are many answers to this question already, but using collections.deque and then the rotate() method, a function can be made that takes a datetime object as the input and then outputs a new datetime object that is one "business month" later than the current one. If the day of the month does not exist in the next month, then it subtracts one until it arrives on a valid day of the month and then returns that object.

import collections
import datetime

def next_month(dt: datetime.datetime):
    month_list = list(range(1, 12 + 1))
    months = collections.deque(month_list)
    while True:
        this_month = list(months)[0]
        if dt.month == this_month:
            break
        months.rotate(-1)
    months.rotate(-1)
    month_plus = list(months)[0]
    for i in range(4):
        try:
            return dt.replace(month=month_plus, day=dt.day - i)
        except ValueError:
            continue

The same end result can be done using itertools.cycle.

import datetime
import itertools

def next_month(dt: datetime.datetime):
    month_list = list(range(1, 12 + 1))
    month = itertools.cycle(month_list)
    while True:
        if next(month) == dt.month:
            break
    month_plus = next(month)
    for i in range(4):
        try:
            return dt.replace(month=month_plus, day=dt.day - i)
        except ValueError:
            continue

Use the python datetime module to add a timedelta of six months to datetime.today() .

http://docs.python.org/library/datetime.html

You will of course have to solve the issue raised by Johannes Weiß-- what do you mean by 6 months?