---
title: earliestBeginDate
framework: foundation
role: symbol
role_heading: Instance Property
path: foundation/urlsessiontask/earliestbegindate
---

# earliestBeginDate

The earliest date at which the network load should begin.

## Declaration

```swift
var earliestBeginDate: Date? { get set }
```

## Mentioned in

Downloading files in the background

## Discussion

Discussion For tasks created from background URLSession instances, this property indicates that the network load should not begin any earlier than this date. Setting this property does not guarantee that the load will begin at the specified date, but only that it will not begin sooner. If not specified, no start delay is used. This property has no effect for tasks created from nonbackground sessions.

## See Also

### Scheduling tasks

- [countOfBytesClientExpectsToReceive](foundation/urlsessiontask/countofbytesclientexpectstoreceive.md)
- [countOfBytesClientExpectsToSend](foundation/urlsessiontask/countofbytesclientexpectstosend.md)
- [NSURLSessionTransferSizeUnknown](foundation/nsurlsessiontransfersizeunknown.md)