# Knowledge cutoff

**Source:** https://promtable.com/glossary/knowledge-cutoff

> The knowledge cutoff is the date after which a language model has no training data — anything that happened after is unknown to it unless supplied at inference time.

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The knowledge cutoff is the date after which a language model has no training data — anything that happened after is unknown to it unless supplied at inference time.

Every base LLM has a knowledge cutoff: Claude 4.6 ~early 2025, GPT-5 ~mid-2025, Gemini 2 ~late 2024. Asking about events after the cutoff produces confident hallucination unless the model has retrieval / web search. Production apps that handle current information must either route to a model with web access (Claude with web, Gemini with AI Overviews, Perplexity), implement RAG over fresh sources, or refuse questions outside the cutoff. The cutoff is one of the few model facts every developer should know off the top of their head for the models they use.

## Common mistakes

- Assuming a model knows recent news.
- Forgetting to update RAG sources when the model cutoff lags.

## Related terms

- [rag](https://promtable.com/glossary/rag)
- [hallucination](https://promtable.com/glossary/hallucination)
- [grounding](https://promtable.com/glossary/grounding)

*Last updated: 2026-06-01*
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Original page: https://promtable.com/glossary/knowledge-cutoff
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