diff -u b/core/modules/file/src/Plugin/Field/FieldType/FileItem.php b/core/modules/file/src/Plugin/Field/FieldType/FileItem.php
--- b/core/modules/file/src/Plugin/Field/FieldType/FileItem.php
+++ b/core/modules/file/src/Plugin/Field/FieldType/FileItem.php
@@ -267,7 +267,22 @@
    * @see token_replace()
    */
   public function getUploadLocation($data = array()) {
-    $settings = $this->getSettings();
+    return static::doGetUploadLocation($this->getSettings(), $data);
+  }
+
+  /**
+   * Determines the URI for a file field.
+   *
+   * @param array $settings
+   *   The array of field settings.
+   * @param array $data
+   *   An array of token objects to pass to token_replace().
+   *
+   * @return string
+   *   An unsanitized file directory URI with tokens replaced. The result of
+   *   the token replacement is then converted to plain text and returned.
+   */
+  protected static function doGetUploadLocation(array $settings, $data = []) {
     $destination = trim($settings['file_directory'], '/');
 
     // Replace tokens. As the tokens might contain HTML we convert it to plain
@@ -312,8 +327,7 @@
     $settings = $field_definition->getSettings();
 
     // Prepare destination.
-    $dirname = $settings['uri_scheme'] . '://' . $settings['file_directory'];
-    $dirname = \Drupal::token()->replace($dirname);
+    $dirname = static::doGetUploadLocation($settings);
     file_prepare_directory($dirname, FILE_CREATE_DIRECTORY);
 
     // Generate a file entity.
diff -u b/core/profiles/standard/config/install/field.field.node.article.field_image.yml b/core/profiles/standard/config/install/field.field.node.article.field_image.yml
--- b/core/profiles/standard/config/install/field.field.node.article.field_image.yml
+++ b/core/profiles/standard/config/install/field.field.node.article.field_image.yml
@@ -17,6 +17,7 @@
 default_value: {  }
 default_value_callback: ''
 settings:
+  file_directory: '[date:custom:Y]-[date:custom:m]'
   file_extensions: 'png gif jpg jpeg'
   max_filesize: ''
   max_resolution: ''