Canon used a date-code system on its cameras and lenses for decades, from the 1960s until roughly 2020. Understanding these codes is genuinely useful — whether you're buying used gear and want to verify a seller's claims about age, trying to track the manufacturing history of a vintage lens, or simply satisfying your curiosity about when a piece of equipment was built.
How the Code Works
Each Canon date code is made up of three components printed or engraved on the camera body or lens barrel, usually near the mount or on a data plate:
First letter — identifies the manufacturing plant where the item was produced.
Second letter — indicates the year of manufacture, cycling through the alphabet (A = 1960, B = 1961, and so on, repeating every 26 years)
Next two digits — represent the month of manufacture (01 = January, 12 = December)
So a code like UH04 would decode as: manufactured at plant U, in 2019 (H in the third cycle of the alphabet), in April (month 04). This matches the example on the Canon TS-E 17mm tilt-shift lens pictured below, which carries the code UH0409 — April 2019.
It's worth noting that because the alphabet cycles every 26 years, the letter alone doesn't tell you the exact year — you need to use context (the product's known production window, the lens mount type, etc.) to determine which cycle applies. For instance, H could mean 1967, 1993, or 2019.
Manufacturing Plants
The first letter in the code identifies where the product was made. Canon has operated factories primarily in Japan (notably in Utsunomiya and Fukushima), as well as facilities in Taiwan, Malaysia, and China for certain products. While Canon has not officially published a complete plant-code key, the most commonly documented plant identifiers seen in the wild include U (widely associated with Utsunomiya, Japan — Canon's primary lens factory), among others. If plant identification is critical for your research, cross-referencing with community databases like Ken Rockwell's Canon date code reference or the Fred Miranda forums can help fill in gaps.
What If There's No Date Code?
If your Canon lens or camera body doesn't have a visible date code, it was likely manufactured under Canon's newer serial number system, which Canon transitioned to around 2020 as production shifted more heavily toward RF-mount mirrorless products. These newer serial numbers encode manufacturing information differently and aren't decoded the same way. Ken Rockwell's Canon date codes page is a helpful reference for both systems.
Why This Matters for Buying Used Gear
Date codes are particularly valuable when purchasing second-hand lenses. A seller listing a Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II as "barely used" can be fact-checked — if the date code indicates a 2008 manufacture date, that lens is now nearly 20 years old, regardless of how it looks externally. Conversely, finding a mint-condition lens with a recent date code can give you confidence that you're getting something that hasn't had decades of wear on the focus helicoid or aperture blades.
Date codes also matter for warranty and service history research, since Canon's authorized repair centers can use the manufacturing date alongside the serial number to look up service records.
Here is a chart of Canon Date Codes
| A | 1960 | 1986 | 2012 |
| B | 1961 | 1987 | 2013 |
| C | 1962 | 1988 | 2014 |
| D | 1963 | 1989 | 2015 |
| E | 1964 | 1990 | 2016 |
| F | 1965 | 1991 | 2017 |
| G | 1966 | 1992 | 2018 |
| H | 1967 | 1993 | 2019 |
| I | 1968 | 1994 | 2020 |
| J | 1969 | 1995 | 2021 |
| K | 1970 | 1996 | 2022 |
| L | 1971 | 1997 | 2023 |
| M | 1972 | 1998 | 2024 |
| N | 1973 | 1999 | 2025 |
| O | 1974 | 2000 | 2026 |
| P | 1975 | 2001 | 2027 |
| Q | 1976 | 2002 | 2028 |
| R | 1977 | 2003 | 2029 |
| S | 1978 | 2004 | 2030 |
| T | 1979 | 2005 | 2031 |
| U | 1980 | 2006 | 2032 |
| V | 1981 | 2007 | 2033 |
| W | 1982 | 2008 | 2034 |
| X | 1983 | 2009 | 2035 |
| Y | 1984 | 2010 | 2036 |
| Z | 1985 | 2011 | 2037 |
Sample date code of UH0409 on my Canon TS-E 17mm lens Showing manufactured 2019