diff --git a/src/uu/date/src/format_modifiers.rs b/src/uu/date/src/format_modifiers.rs
index b77ed78dd6..3e1071ef63 100644
--- a/src/uu/date/src/format_modifiers.rs
+++ b/src/uu/date/src/format_modifiers.rs
@@ -75,8 +75,7 @@ struct ParsedSpec<'a> {
     /// Flag characters from `[_0^#+-]`.
     flags: &'a str,
     /// Explicit width, if present. `None` means no width was specified.
-    /// A value that overflows `usize` is represented as `Some(usize::MAX)` so
-    /// the downstream allocation check surfaces it as `FieldWidthTooLarge`.
+    /// Width overflows are handled naturally by usize parsing.
     width: Option<usize>,
     /// The specifier itself, including any leading colons (e.g. `Y`, `:z`, `::z`).
     spec: &'a str,
@@ -411,6 +410,16 @@ fn apply_modifiers(value: &str, parsed: &ParsedSpec<'_>) -> Result<String, Forma
 
     // If no_pad flag is active, suppress all padding and return
     if no_pad {
+        if specifier.ends_with('N') {
+            if let Some(w) = width {
+                // Truncate from the right by keeping the leftmost characters,
+                // using char iteration to avoid slicing at a non-UTF-8 boundary.
+                let truncated: String = result.chars().take(w).collect();
+                // Return truncated nanoseconds without trimming trailing zeros (GNU behavior)
+                return Ok(truncated);
+            }
+        }
+        // For all other specifiers (and %N without width), just strip padding
         return Ok(strip_default_padding(&result));
     }
 
@@ -988,6 +997,7 @@ mod tests {
 
         for (input, expected) in cases {
             let actual = parse_format_spec(input).map(|p| (p.flags, p.width, p.spec, p.len));
+
             assert_eq!(actual, *expected, "input = {input:?}");
         }
     }