Dates, times, phone numbers, and addresses

Dates, times, phone numbers, and addresses often appear together, so we’ve put guidelines for these in one place.

Dates and years

Spell out dates in body copy, using the full construction: March 31, 1989. Or January 2, 1980. In general, spell out days of the week and months also in body copy.

Exceptions

• Use 9/11 when it’s part of a program name such as the Post-9/11 GI Bill.
• Abbreviate days and months when space is very limited, such as in callout boxes, alerts, or promo components, etc.
  • Mon., Tue., Wed., Thu., Fri., Sat., Sun.
  • Jan., Feb., Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov., Dec. (Don’t abbreviate March, April, May, June, July.)
  • In application form fields, we often use the construction: mm/dd/yyyy
    

Years

When referencing decades or periods of years, don’t use an apostrophe with the “s.”

• Like this: The early 2000s
• Not this: The early 2000’s

Times and time zones

Write out times, using a.m. and p.m. with periods: 9:00 a.m.

• Spell out noon and midnight. Don’t use 12:00 p.m. or 12:00 a.m.
• Include the minutes, even when on the hour.
• When referencing office hours, always use the time zone ET, even if the office is in another location (no parentheses, periods, or daylight/standard).

• When referencing international time zones, use the time zone name for that country or the UTC (coordinated universal time) offset. (Example: Central European Time; Korea Standard Time; UTC +2)
• In an application or tool that has a time stamp of a user’s progress or saved work, show hours in their local time zone.
• In body copy, write out ranges using sentence construction: We’re open 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. ET, Monday through Friday.
• Where space is limited, indicate ranges with the - hyphen without spaces on either side. Don’t combine the hyphen with from/between sentence construction.

Phone numbers

Using the Telephone component will apply the following formatting and accessibility guidance.

Formatting

• Use hyphens between numbers, and don’t use parentheses to set off the area code: 212-123-1234.
• Use +1 only when the information is specifically addressing Veterans or people who are living outside the U.S.: +1-201-123-1234.
• For phone numbers with an extension, use ext. at the end: 202-123-1234, ext. 9.
• Always include days and hours of operation when listing a phone number.
• Use “select” to indicate the menu option after dialing a phone number. Example: Call 988 and select 1.
• Use a verb ahead of the number. Use “call” or “call us at…” for phone numbers and “text” or “text us at” for text numbers.
• When a phone number has (TTY: 711) included, it should be formatted in parenthesis directly following the phone number. Example: 866-440-1238 (TTY: 711) or 866-440-1238, ext. 4 (TTY: 711)

Links and aria

• Hyperlink all phone numbers, including (TTY: 711). Include “TTY:” in the link. Don’t link the “call” or “text” verb that precedes the number.
  Example: <a href="tel:2021231234"> 202-123-1234 </a> (<a href="tel:711">TTY: 711</a>)
• New guidance as of August 2024: You no longer need to use aria labels on phone numbers or TTY. This shift came out of evolving accessibility guidance for people who use assistive technology. Teams should stop adding aria labels to phone numbers and TTY in new content, but the shift will take time to implement on existing content. If you have questions, contact the Sitewide Content, Accessibility, and Information Architecture (CAIA) team.

Note: If for some reason you cannot use the Telephone component, you are responsible for meeting the same formatting and accessibility guidance when creating links to phone numbers.

Don’t use vanity phone numbers in body copy

We don’t use vanity phone numbers in body copy, as it adds visual noise and is not helpful to screen readers. We use and hyperlink only the numeric phone number in body copy.

• Exception: In marketing or promotional messaging, such as the right rail promo component, we discourage but make an exception for vanity phone numbers. In marketing or promotional components, use the format: 877-222-VETS (8387) and hyperlink the complete number including the parenthetical.

Fax numbers

Don’t hyperlink or add aria labels to fax numbers. Make it clear in the surrounding text when a number is a fax number to avoid people mistaking it as a phone number.

Like this: If you’re in the U.S., fax your application to 1-844-531-7818.

Addresses

Don’t use periods in PO for PO Box.

Write out street names (street, road, avenue, boulevard, highway, etc.) in both body copy and in address blocks. Don’t abbreviate.

When a street address contains a compass point (north, south, etc.), defer to the way it’s referenced locally. For example, some cities may abbreviate compass points like north and south for some but not all streets.

In the examples below, we spell out the street names, and style the compass points the way they're locally referenced in Washington, D.C., and New York City, which both abbreviate compass points.

Zip codes

When we ask a Veteran to fill out their address, we don’t require them to include the extra 4 digits of their zip code. But when we (VA) provide an address for Veterans to send documents to, we sometimes include the extra 4 digits of the zip code.