How to Install `freezegun` in Python

v1.5.5 General Purpose Python >=3.8 Apache-2.0

Let your Python tests travel through time

Install pip install freezegun

What is freezegun?

Let your Python tests travel through time

FreezeGun: Let your Python tests travel through time

FreezeGun is a library that allows your Python tests to travel through time by mocking the datetime module.

Once the decorator or context manager have been invoked, all calls to datetime.datetime.now(), datetime.datetime.utcnow(), datetime.date.today(), time.time(), time.localtime(), time.gmtime(), and time.strftime() will return the time that has been frozen. time.monotonic() and time.perfcounter() will also be frozen, but as usual it makes no guarantees about their absolute value, only their changes over time.

Documentation → PyPI page → Author: Steve Pulec

Quick Start

Minimal example to get started with freezegun:

import freezegun

print(freezegun.__version__)

Installation

pip (standard)

pip install freezegun

Virtual environment (recommended)

python -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate   # Windows: venv\Scripts\activate
pip install freezegun

pip3

pip3 install freezegun

conda

conda install -c conda-forge freezegun

Poetry

poetry add freezegun

Dependencies

Installing freezegun will also install these packages:

python-dateutil

Verify the Installation

After installing, confirm the package is available:

python -c "import freezegun; print(freezegun.__version__)"

If this prints a version number, installation succeeded. If you see a ModuleNotFoundError, see the errors section below.

Installation Errors

Common errors when installing freezegun with pip.

ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'freezegun'

Cause: The package is not installed in the current Python environment.

Fix: Run pip install freezegun. If using a virtual environment, ensure it is activated first.

ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'freezegun' (installed but still failing)

Cause: pip installed the package into a different Python than the one running your script.

Fix: Use python -m pip install freezegun to install into the interpreter you are running.

ImportError: cannot import name 'X' from 'freezegun'

Cause: The function or class does not exist in the installed version.

Fix: Check the version with pip show freezegun and upgrade with pip install --upgrade freezegun.

pip: command not found

Cause: pip is not in PATH or Python was not added to PATH during installation.

Fix: Try python -m pip install freezegun. On macOS/Linux try pip3.

PermissionError: [Errno 13] Permission denied

Cause: No write access to the system Python package directory.

Fix: Use a virtual environment, or add --user: pip install --user freezegun

SSL: CERTIFICATE_VERIFY_FAILED

Cause: pip cannot verify PyPI's SSL certificate — common behind corporate proxies.

Fix: Try: pip install --trusted-host pypi.org --trusted-host files.pythonhosted.org freezegun

Recent Releases

Version	Released
`1.5.5` latest	2025-08-09
`1.5.4`	2025-07-30
`1.5.3`	2025-07-12
`1.5.2`	2025-05-24
`1.5.1`	2024-05-11

Full release history on PyPI →

Manage freezegun

Upgrade to latest version

pip install --upgrade freezegun

Install a specific version

pip install freezegun==1.5.5

Uninstall

pip uninstall freezegun

Check what is installed

pip show freezegun

Last updated: 2026-04-11 • Data from PyPI

How to Install freezegun in Python