 <p>Have you tried with "before"?</p> <pre><code>$args = array( 'post_type' =&gt; 'epl_registration', 'post_status' =&gt; 'publish', 'fields' =&gt; 'ids', 'date_query' =&gt; array( array( 'column' =&gt; 'post_date_gmt', 'before' =&gt; '6 hours ago' ) ) ); $the_query = new WP_Query($args); </code></pre>