R: How to Convert Date to Quarter and Year

You can use one of the following two methods to quickly convert a date to a quarter and year format in R:

Method 1: Use zoo Package

library(zoo)

#convert date to year/quarter format
#df$date yearqtr(df$date, format = '%Y-%m-%d')

Method 2: Use lubridate Package

library(lubridate)
library(dplyr)

df %>% mutate(date = quarter(date, with_year = TRUE))

The following examples show how to use each method with the following data frame:

#create data frame
df frame(date=c('2022-01-03', '2022-02-15', '2022-05-09',
                        '2022-08-10', '2022-10-14', '2022-12-30'),
                 sales=c(130, 98, 120, 88, 94, 100))

#view data frame
df

        date sales
1 2022-01-03   130
2 2022-02-15    98
3 2022-05-09   120
4 2022-08-10    88
5 2022-10-14    94
6 2022-12-30   100

Example 1: Use zoo Package

The following code shows how to use the as.yearqtr() function from the zoo package to format dates in a year/quarter format:

library(zoo)

#convert date to year/quarter format
df$date yearqtr(df$date, format = '%Y-%m-%d')

#view updated data frame
df

     date sales
1 2022 Q1   130
2 2022 Q1    98
3 2022 Q2   120
4 2022 Q3    88
5 2022 Q4    94
6 2022 Q4   100

Each date has been converted to a quarter and year format.

Example 2: Use lubridate Package

The following code shows how to use the quarter() function from the lubridate package to format dates in a year/quarter format:

library(lubridate)
library(dplyr) 

#convert date to year/quarter format
df %>% mutate(date = quarter(date, with_year = TRUE))

    date sales
1 2022.1   130
2 2022.1    98
3 2022.2   120
4 2022.3    88
5 2022.4    94
6 2022.4   100

Each date has been converted to a quarter and year format.

You can also leave out the with_year argument to only display the quarter without the year:

library(lubridate)
library(dplyr) 

#convert date to quarter format
df %>% mutate(date = quarter(date))

  date sales
1    1   130
2    1    98
3    2   120
4    3    88
5    4    94
6    4   100

The dates now display the quarter without the year.

Additional Resources

The following tutorials explain how to perform other common conversions in R:

How to Convert Date to Numeric in R
How to Convert Numeric to Character in R
How to Convert Categorical Variables to Numeric in R