Never expect to see the magazine on newsstands now to have the current month. Don’t ask me why, I’m sure google has the answer somewhere as it’s long left my mind, but for my whole life just about every magazine I’ve ever gotten has been printed on the cover/in the small print inside as 1-3 months ahead of whatever the current month is.

Edit: Fucking ADHD, sec -

Cover Date Article on Wikipedia:

"In the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, the standard practice is to display on magazine covers a date which is some weeks or months in the future from the publishing or release date. There are two reasons for this discrepancy: first, to allow magazines to continue appearing “current” to consumers even after they have been on sale for some time (since not all magazines will be sold immediately), and second, to inform newsstands when an unsold magazine can be removed from the stands and returned to the publishing company or be destroyed (in this case, the cover date is also the pull date).

Weeklies (such as Time and Newsweek) are generally dated a week ahead. Monthlies (such as National Geographic) are generally dated a half month ahead, and quarterlies are generally dated two or three months ahead.

In other countries, the cover date usually matches more closely the date of publication, and may indeed be identical where weekly magazines are concerned.

In all markets, it is rare for monthly magazines to indicate a particular day of the month: thus issues are dated May 2016, and so on, whereas weekly magazines may be dated 17 May 2016. "