Yes, migration is a problem, since existing database columns would have to be migrated to UTC. I would suggest maybe then just deprecating the use of Date as @RevisionTimestamp (and issue a warning at bootstrap time), and then implementing LocalDateTime, as per HHH-10827 - The field annotated with @RevisionTimestamp should accept type java.time.LocalDateTime Open .

Java-8 LocalDateTime has timezone info, so it always persists as UTC.

Since java.util.Data has problems, Hibernate should never force developers to use it. I believe this Envers RevisionTimestamp is the last place where this still happens.