How to increment a datetime by one day?

date = datetime.datetime(2003,8,1,12,4,5)
for i in range(5): 
    date += datetime.timedelta(days=1)
    print(date) 

Incrementing dates can be accomplished using timedelta objects:

import datetime

datetime.datetime.now() + datetime.timedelta(days=1)

Look up timedelta objects in the Python docs: http://docs.python.org/library/datetime.html


All of the current answers are wrong in some cases as they do not consider that timezones change their offset relative to UTC. So in some cases adding 24h is different from adding a calendar day.

Proposed solution

The following solution works for Samoa and keeps the local time constant.

def add_day(today):
    """
    Add a day to the current day.

    This takes care of historic offset changes and DST.

    Parameters
    ----------
    today : timezone-aware datetime object

    Returns
    -------
    tomorrow : timezone-aware datetime object
    """
    today_utc = today.astimezone(datetime.timezone.utc)
    tz = today.tzinfo
    tomorrow_utc = today_utc + datetime.timedelta(days=1)
    tomorrow_utc_tz = tomorrow_utc.astimezone(tz)
    tomorrow_utc_tz = tomorrow_utc_tz.replace(hour=today.hour,
                                              minute=today.minute,
                                              second=today.second)
    return tomorrow_utc_tz

Tested Code

# core modules
import datetime

# 3rd party modules
import pytz


# add_day methods
def add_day(today):
    """
    Add a day to the current day.

    This takes care of historic offset changes and DST.

    Parameters
    ----------
    today : timezone-aware datetime object

    Returns
    -------
    tomorrow : timezone-aware datetime object
    """
    today_utc = today.astimezone(datetime.timezone.utc)
    tz = today.tzinfo
    tomorrow_utc = today_utc + datetime.timedelta(days=1)
    tomorrow_utc_tz = tomorrow_utc.astimezone(tz)
    tomorrow_utc_tz = tomorrow_utc_tz.replace(hour=today.hour,
                                              minute=today.minute,
                                              second=today.second)
    return tomorrow_utc_tz


def add_day_datetime_timedelta_conversion(today):
    # Correct for Samoa, but dst shift
    today_utc = today.astimezone(datetime.timezone.utc)
    tz = today.tzinfo
    tomorrow_utc = today_utc + datetime.timedelta(days=1)
    tomorrow_utc_tz = tomorrow_utc.astimezone(tz)
    return tomorrow_utc_tz


def add_day_dateutil_relativedelta(today):
    # WRONG!
    from dateutil.relativedelta import relativedelta
    return today + relativedelta(days=1)


def add_day_datetime_timedelta(today):
    # WRONG!
    return today + datetime.timedelta(days=1)


# Test cases
def test_samoa(add_day):
    """
    Test if add_day properly increases the calendar day for Samoa.

    Due to economic considerations, Samoa went from 2011-12-30 10:00-11:00
    to 2011-12-30 10:00+13:00. Hence the country skipped 2011-12-30 in its
    local time.

    See https://stackoverflow.com/q/52084423/562769

    A common wrong result here is 2011-12-30T23:59:00-10:00. This date never
    happened in Samoa.
    """
    tz = pytz.timezone('Pacific/Apia')
    today_utc = datetime.datetime(2011, 12, 30, 9, 59,
                                  tzinfo=datetime.timezone.utc)
    today_tz = today_utc.astimezone(tz)  # 2011-12-29T23:59:00-10:00
    tomorrow = add_day(today_tz)
    return tomorrow.isoformat() == '2011-12-31T23:59:00+14:00'


def test_dst(add_day):
    """Test if add_day properly increases the calendar day if DST happens."""
    tz = pytz.timezone('Europe/Berlin')
    today_utc = datetime.datetime(2018, 3, 25, 0, 59,
                                  tzinfo=datetime.timezone.utc)
    today_tz = today_utc.astimezone(tz)  # 2018-03-25T01:59:00+01:00
    tomorrow = add_day(today_tz)
    return tomorrow.isoformat() == '2018-03-26T01:59:00+02:00'


to_test = [(add_day_dateutil_relativedelta, 'relativedelta'),
           (add_day_datetime_timedelta, 'timedelta'),
           (add_day_datetime_timedelta_conversion, 'timedelta+conversion'),
           (add_day, 'timedelta+conversion+dst')]
print('{:<25}: {:>5} {:>5}'.format('Method', 'Samoa', 'DST'))
for method, name in to_test:
    print('{:<25}: {:>5} {:>5}'
          .format(name,
                  test_samoa(method),
                  test_dst(method)))

Test results

Method                   : Samoa   DST
relativedelta            :     0     0
timedelta                :     0     0
timedelta+conversion     :     1     0
timedelta+conversion+dst :     1     1