diff --git a/framework/CHANGELOG.md b/framework/CHANGELOG.md
index 776a32b14b..f6e4681e2a 100644
--- a/framework/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/framework/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -7,6 +7,7 @@ Yii Framework 2 Change Log
 - Bug #7305: Logging of Exception objects resulted in failure of the logger i.e. no logs being written (cebe)
 - Bug #7707: client-side `trim` validator now passes the trimmed value to subsequent validators (nkovacs)
 - Bug #8322: `yii\behaviors\TimestampBehavior::touch()` now throws an exception if owner is new record (klimov-paul)
+- Bug #8451: `yii\i18n\Formatter` did not allow negative unix timestamps as input for date formatting (cebe)
 - Bug: Fixed string comparison in `BaseActiveRecord::unlink()` which may result in wrong comparison result for hash valued primary keys starting with `0e` (cebe)
 - Enh #8070: `yii\console\controllers\MessageController` now sorts created messages, even if there is no new one, while saving to PHP file (klimov-paul)
 - Enh #8286: `yii\console\controllers\MessageController` improved allowing extraction of nested translator calls (klimov-paul)
diff --git a/framework/i18n/Formatter.php b/framework/i18n/Formatter.php
index ad598ea084..47ae15828f 100644
--- a/framework/i18n/Formatter.php
+++ b/framework/i18n/Formatter.php
@@ -641,9 +641,9 @@ class Formatter extends Component
         }
         try {
             if (is_numeric($value)) { // process as unix timestamp, which is always in UTC
-                if (($timestamp = DateTime::createFromFormat('U', $value, new DateTimeZone('UTC'))) === false) {
-                    throw new InvalidParamException("Failed to parse '$value' as a UNIX timestamp.");
-                }
+                $timestamp = new DateTime();
+                $timestamp->setTimezone(new DateTimeZone('UTC'));
+                $timestamp->setTimestamp($value);
                 return $checkTimeInfo ? [$timestamp, true] : $timestamp;
             } elseif (($timestamp = DateTime::createFromFormat('Y-m-d', $value, new DateTimeZone($this->defaultTimeZone))) !== false) { // try Y-m-d format (support invalid dates like 2012-13-01)
                 return $checkTimeInfo ? [$timestamp, false] : $timestamp;
diff --git a/tests/framework/i18n/FormatterDateTest.php b/tests/framework/i18n/FormatterDateTest.php
index 656d3a3a5c..300e29ff53 100644
--- a/tests/framework/i18n/FormatterDateTest.php
+++ b/tests/framework/i18n/FormatterDateTest.php
@@ -597,4 +597,30 @@ class FormatterDateTest extends TestCase
         $this->assertEquals('2015-04-28 12:06:15+0200', $this->formatter->asDateTime($timeStamp, 'yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ssZ'));
     }
 
+
+    public function testInputUnixTimestamp()
+    {
+        $this->formatter->defaultTimeZone = 'UTC';
+        $timeStamp = 1431907200;
+        $this->formatter->timeZone = 'UTC';
+        $this->assertEquals('2015-05-18 00:00:00+0000', $this->formatter->asDateTime($timeStamp, 'yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ssZ'));
+        $this->formatter->timeZone = 'Europe/Berlin';
+        $this->assertEquals('2015-05-18 02:00:00+0200', $this->formatter->asDateTime($timeStamp, 'yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ssZ'));
+
+        $this->formatter->defaultTimeZone = 'Europe/Berlin';
+        $timeStamp = 1431907200;
+        $this->formatter->timeZone = 'UTC';
+        $this->assertEquals('2015-05-18 00:00:00+0000', $this->formatter->asDateTime($timeStamp, 'yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ssZ'));
+        $this->formatter->timeZone = 'Europe/Berlin';
+        $this->assertEquals('2015-05-18 02:00:00+0200', $this->formatter->asDateTime($timeStamp, 'yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ssZ'));
+
+        $this->formatter->defaultTimeZone = 'UTC';
+        $timeStamp = -1431907200;
+        $this->formatter->timeZone = 'UTC';
+        $this->assertEquals('1924-08-17 00:00:00+0000', $this->formatter->asDateTime($timeStamp, 'yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ssZ'));
+        $this->formatter->timeZone = 'Europe/Berlin';
+        $this->assertEquals('1924-08-17 01:00:00+0100', $this->formatter->asDateTime($timeStamp, 'yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ssZ'));
+
+    }
+
 }