In an effort to make acceptable XML easier to compose, the SBA does not currently impose format restrictions on dates or dateTime elements. In general, a date or dateTime element only has to look like a date and make sense as a US date. The UK format of DD/MM/YYYY is not supported and will likely be treated as the US format MM/DD/YYYY if the MM and DD parts make sense in that context, which will, in general, result in the wrong date. When in doubt, use unambiguous US or international standard date formats. In the past, the following strings (without quotes) have been accepted as valid strings: "2016-09-25 00:00:00.0" (more computer-readable, explicit and safer) "Sep 01 2016 12:00AM" (more human-readable) The longest of these previously-acceptable strings is 21. Even when providing additional time zone information, it should not be necessary to give more than 30 characters to specify a date or dateTime, hence the maxLength of 30.