diff --git a/include/common/time.h b/include/common/time.h
index 2633b1c5ee..d6bbecb8e1 100644
--- a/include/common/time.h
+++ b/include/common/time.h
@@ -103,6 +103,8 @@ REGPRM1 static inline struct timeval *tv_now(struct timeval *tv)
  */
 REGPRM2 void tv_update_date(int max_wait, int interrupted);
 
+char *timeofday_as_iso_us(int pad);
+
 /*
  * sets a struct timeval to its highest value so that it can never happen
  * note that only tv_usec is necessary to detect it since a tv_usec > 999999
diff --git a/src/time.c b/src/time.c
index e830f851ad..1a18c7641e 100644
--- a/src/time.c
+++ b/src/time.c
@@ -32,6 +32,9 @@ THREAD_LOCAL struct timeval after_poll;      /* system date after leaving poll()
 static THREAD_LOCAL struct timeval tv_offset;  /* per-thread time ofsset relative to global time */
 static volatile unsigned long long global_now; /* common date between all threads (32:32) */
 
+static THREAD_LOCAL unsigned int iso_time_sec;     /* last iso time value for this thread */
+static THREAD_LOCAL char         iso_time_str[28]; /* ISO time representation of gettimeofday() */
+
 /*
  * adds <ms> ms to <from>, set the result to <tv> and returns a pointer <tv>
  */
@@ -262,6 +265,33 @@ REGPRM2 void tv_update_date(int max_wait, int interrupted)
 	return;
 }
 
+/* returns the current date as returned by gettimeofday() in ISO+microsecond
+ * format. It uses a thread-local static variable that the reader can consume
+ * for as long as it wants until next call. Thus, do not call it from a signal
+ * handler. If <pad> is non-0, a trailing space will be added. It will always
+ * return exactly 26 or 27 characters (depending on padding) and will always be
+ * zero-terminated, thus it will always fit into a 28 bytes buffer.
+ */
+char *timeofday_as_iso_us(int pad)
+{
+	struct timeval new_date;
+	struct tm tm;
+
+	gettimeofday(&new_date, NULL);
+	if (new_date.tv_sec != iso_time_sec || !new_date.tv_sec) {
+		get_localtime(new_date.tv_sec, &tm);
+		if (unlikely(strftime(iso_time_str, sizeof(iso_time_str), "%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S.000000", &tm) != 26))
+			strcpy(iso_time_str, "YYYY-mm-ddTHH:MM:SS.000000"); // make the failure visible but respect format.
+		iso_time_sec = new_date.tv_sec;
+	}
+	utoa_pad(new_date.tv_usec, iso_time_str + 20, 7);
+	if (pad) {
+		iso_time_str[26] = ' ';
+		iso_time_str[27] = 0;
+	}
+	return iso_time_str;
+}
+
 /*
  * Local variables:
  *  c-indent-level: 8