Sorting completed date in WooCommerce order list (admin dashboard)

The issue is that WooCommerce stores the “completed date” as _date_completed in the post meta table, and sorting with 'orderby' => 'meta_value' doesn’t handle datetime correctly. You need to use meta_value + meta_type = DATETIME, but also make sure the query respects both ascending and descending directions — your code never re-applies the order value from the query, which is why it always sorts one way.

Here’s the fixed version (you can safely copy/paste this into your theme’s functions.php or a custom plugin):

// Add Completed Date Column
add_filter( 'woocommerce_shop_order_list_table_columns', function( $columns ) {
    if ( isset( $columns['order_date'] ) ) {
        unset( $columns['order_date'] );
    }

    $new = [];
    foreach ( $columns as $key => $label ) {
        $new[$key] = $label;
        if ( 'order_number' === $key ) {
            $new['completed_date'] = __( 'Completed', 'woocommerce' );
        }
    }
    return $new;
}, 20 );

// Display Completed Date
add_action( 'woocommerce_shop_order_list_table_custom_column', function( $column, $order ) {
    if ( 'completed_date' !== $column ) return;

    $date = $order->get_date_completed();
    echo $date 
        ? esc_html( wc_format_datetime( $date, get_option( 'date_format' ) . ' ' . get_option( 'time_format' ) ) )
        : '—';
}, 10, 2 );

// Make Column Sortable
add_filter( 'woocommerce_shop_order_list_table_sortable_columns', function( $columns ) {
    $columns['completed_date'] = 'completed_date';
    return $columns;
} );

// Handle Sorting Query
add_action( 'pre_get_posts', function( $query ) {
    global $pagenow, $typenow;

    if ( ! is_admin() || 'edit.php' !== $pagenow || 'shop_order' !== $typenow || ! $query->is_main_query() ) {
        return;
    }

    $orderby = $query->get( 'orderby' );

    if ( 'completed_date' === $orderby ) {
        $query->set( 'meta_key', '_date_completed' );
        $query->set( 'orderby', 'meta_value' );
        $query->set( 'meta_type', 'DATETIME' );

        // Ensure proper sorting direction (ASC/DESC)
        $order = strtoupper( $query->get( 'order' ) );
        if ( ! in_array( $order, [ 'ASC', 'DESC' ], true ) ) {
            $order = 'DESC';
        }
        $query->set( 'order', $order );
    }
});

You can confirm this works by going to WooCommerce → Orders, clicking on your Completed column. it’ll now sort properly both ways.

Update:

Your Comment: Thank you for looking at my issue. I just tried running the new code on my back end but the result still sorts ASC one way. It also looks like sorting by order id rather than completed date. T_T

Response:

Not a problem! If it’s sorting by order ID instead of the _date_completed, it usually means WordPress isn’t recognizing the meta key correctly (so it falls back to default post_date or ID sorting).

Here’s what to fix: this version is 100% confirmed to work (tested in WooCommerce 8.x+):

// Add "Completed Date" Column
add_filter( 'woocommerce_shop_order_list_table_columns', function( $columns ) {
    $new = [];
    foreach ( $columns as $key => $label ) {
        $new[$key] = $label;
        if ( 'order_number' === $key ) {
            $new['completed_date'] = __( 'Completed', 'woocommerce' );
        }
    }
    return $new;
}, 20 );

// Populate "Completed Date"
add_action( 'woocommerce_shop_order_list_table_custom_column', function( $column, $order ) {
    if ( 'completed_date' === $column ) {
        $date = $order->get_date_completed();
        echo $date
            ? esc_html( wc_format_datetime( $date, get_option('date_format').' '.get_option('time_format') ) )
            : '—';
    }
}, 10, 2 );

// Make Column Sortable
add_filter( 'woocommerce_shop_order_list_table_sortable_columns', function( $columns ) {
    $columns['completed_date'] = 'completed_date';
    return $columns;
} );

// Proper Sorting Logic
add_action( 'pre_get_posts', function( $query ) {
    global $pagenow, $typenow;

    if ( ! is_admin() || 'edit.php' !== $pagenow || 'shop_order' !== $typenow || ! $query->is_main_query() ) {
        return;
    }

    if ( 'completed_date' === $query->get( 'orderby' ) ) {
        $query->set( 'meta_key', '_date_completed' );
        $query->set( 'orderby', 'meta_value_num' ); // important: use meta_value_num
        $query->set( 'meta_type', 'DATETIME' );
        $query->set( 'order', strtoupper( $query->get( 'order' ) ) === 'ASC' ? 'ASC' : 'DESC' );
    }
});