diff -r b01e69847321 Doc/library/argparse.rst
--- a/Doc/library/argparse.rst	Tue Apr 07 07:10:38 2015 -0400
+++ b/Doc/library/argparse.rst	Tue Apr 07 18:12:52 2015 +0100
@@ -1709,6 +1709,26 @@
      Namespace(subparser_name='2', y='frobble')
 
 
+DateType objects
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+.. class:: DateType(format='%Y-%m-%d')
+
+   The :class:`DateType` factory creates objects that can be passed to the type
+   argument of :meth:`ArgumentParser.add_argument`.  Arguments that have
+   :class:`DateType` objects as their type will parse command-line arguments as
+   datetime.dates with the requested format (see the :class:`datetime.date`
+   class for more details)::
+
+      >>> parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
+      >>> parser.add_argument('--start', type=argparse.DateType('%d/%m/%Y))
+      >>> parser.add_argument('end', type=argparse.DateType())
+      >>> parser.parse_args(['--start', '01/02/2015', '2015-01-03'])
+      Namespace(end=datetime.date(2015, 1, 3), start=datetime.date(2015, 1, 2))
+
+   .. versionadded:: 3.5
+
+
 FileType objects
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 
diff -r b01e69847321 Lib/argparse.py
--- a/Lib/argparse.py	Tue Apr 07 07:10:38 2015 -0400
+++ b/Lib/argparse.py	Tue Apr 07 18:12:52 2015 +0100
@@ -19,6 +19,9 @@
     parser.add_argument(
         '--log', default=sys.stdout, type=argparse.FileType('w'),
         help='the file where the sum should be written')
+    parse.add_argument(
+        '--date, default=date.today(), type=argparse.DateType('%m/%d/%Y'),
+        help='the date the integers were summed')
     args = parser.parse_args()
     args.log.write('%s' % sum(args.integers))
     args.log.close()
@@ -36,6 +39,10 @@
         parsing the command-line are caught by ArgumentParser and emitted
         as command-line messages.
 
+    - DateType -- A factory for defining types of datetime.dates to be created.
+        As the example above shows, instances of DateType are typically passed
+        as the type= argument of add_argument() calls.
+
     - FileType -- A factory for defining types of files to be created. As the
         example above shows, instances of FileType are typically passed as
         the type= argument of add_argument() calls.
@@ -66,6 +73,7 @@
     'ArgumentParser',
     'ArgumentError',
     'ArgumentTypeError',
+    'DateType',
     'FileType',
     'HelpFormatter',
     'ArgumentDefaultsHelpFormatter',
@@ -90,6 +98,7 @@
 import sys as _sys
 import textwrap as _textwrap
 
+from datetime import datetime as _datetime
 from gettext import gettext as _, ngettext
 
 
@@ -1139,6 +1148,31 @@
 # Type classes
 # ==============
 
+class DateType(object):
+    """Factory for creating datetime.date object types
+
+    Instances of DateType are typically passed as type= arguments to the
+    ArgumentParser add_argument() method.
+
+    Keyword Arguments:
+        - format -- A string indicating how to parse the date string. Accepts
+            the same values as datetime.strptime
+    """
+
+    def __init__(self, format='%Y-%m-%d'):
+        self._format = format
+
+    def __call__(self, date_string):
+        try:
+            return _datetime.strptime(date_string, self._format).date()
+        except ValueError as e:
+            message = _("can't parse '%s': %s")
+            raise ArgumentTypeError(message % (date_string, e))
+
+    def __repr__(self):
+        return '%s(%s)' % (type(self).__name__, repr(self._format))
+
+
 class FileType(object):
     """Factory for creating file object types
 
diff -r b01e69847321 Lib/test/test_argparse.py
--- a/Lib/test/test_argparse.py	Tue Apr 07 07:10:38 2015 -0400
+++ b/Lib/test/test_argparse.py	Tue Apr 07 18:12:52 2015 +0100
@@ -11,6 +11,7 @@
 import unittest
 import argparse
 
+from datetime import date
 from io import StringIO
 
 from test import support
@@ -1436,6 +1437,13 @@
 # Type conversion tests
 # =====================
 
+class TestDateTypeRepr(TestCase):
+
+    def test_format(self):
+        type = argparse.DateType('%d/%m/%Y')
+        self.assertEqual("DateType('%d/%m/%Y')", repr(type))
+
+
 class TestFileTypeRepr(TestCase):
 
     def test_r(self):
@@ -1477,6 +1485,23 @@
         return self.name == other.name == text
 
 
+class TestDateType(ParserTestCase):
+    """Test that DateType parses date in the correct format"""
+
+    argument_signatures = [
+        Sig('-x', type=argparse.DateType()),
+        Sig('spam', type=argparse.DateType('%d/%m/%Y'))
+    ]
+    failures = ['-x', '', 'this is not a date', 'Tuesday 7th April']
+    successes = [
+        ('01/02/2015', NS(x=None, spam=date(2015, 2, 1))),
+        ('-x 2016-03-04 01/02/2015', NS(x=date(2016, 3, 4), spam=date(2015, 2,
+                                                                      1))),
+        ('01/02/2015 -x 2016-03-04', NS(x=date(2016, 3, 4), spam=date(2015, 2,
+                                                                      1))),
+    ]
+
+
 class TestFileTypeR(TempDirMixin, ParserTestCase):
     """Test the FileType option/argument type for reading files"""