Forex Market Hours and Trading Sessions

The forex market is the world’s largest market by trading volume, and it is open 24 hours on weekdays, from Sunday at 5 p.m. ET to Friday at 5 p.m. ET. But that doesn’t mean you should be looking at the charts all this time, and even worse, executing trades. There are specific forex market hours and sessions that usually have the most volatility and liquidity, and as a day trader, that’s when you want to trigger.

Forex market hours by session

Forex has no central exchange and no single opening bell. That’s what allows it to trade 24 hours, 5 days a week. It runs as four regional sessions that hand off to each other around the clock: Sydney into Tokyo into London into New York. Liquidity and spreads also move with which sessions are open.

Below are the standard local trading hours for each session, plus their UTC equivalents using winter (standard) time for each region. I built the numbers this way for a reason. London and New York shift their clocks for daylight saving on different dates than each other, and Sydney’s daylight saving runs opposite to both since it’s in the Southern Hemisphere.

A single UTC table can’t stay accurate through all three calendars at once, so treat this as the reference and use our live forex market hours tool above for the exact time in your own zone today.

Times above use each region’s standard (winter) time. London and New York move their clocks forward about an hour in spring and back in autumn, on different dates from each other and from Sydney, so the UTC columns shift through the year. Japan does not observe daylight saving, so Tokyo’s row never changes. For the exact conversion to your own time zone today, use the live tool at the top of this page.

The London-New York Overlap

From roughly 13:00 to 17:00 UTC (8 a.m. to noon EST winter time), the London and New York sessions run at the same time. This is the busiest window in forex, as two of the three biggest global trading centers are active together.

So, in this specific period, volume is highest, spreads are tightest, and the price usually moves the most. Years of experience have taught me that this is the best time to trade forex, especially USD and EUR pairs.

Is Forex Open on Weekends and Holidays?

No, forex is closed on weekends and holidays. The market runs 24 hours a day, but only five days a week, not seven. Forex market hours begin Sunday at 5 p.m. ET, when Sydney’s session begins, and run without a break until New York’s session closes Friday at 5 p.m. ET. Outside that window, the market is shut.

Public holidays, however, don’t close forex the way they close a stock exchange. That’s because there’s no single exchange to close. But liquidity thins out around major holidays like Christmas and New Year, because banks and institutional desks in the affected regions step back. The market stays technically open, but spreads just get wider and the price moves choppier than usual. I always recommend fellow traders to step away from the chart during these time periods to avoid unnecessary losses.

US stock market hours

Unlike forex, US stocks trade on an actual exchange with a fixed schedule. The New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq run three back-to-back windows each trading day, all in Eastern Time, Monday through Friday.

Only the middle one, the regular session, is when the opening and closing bell actually ring. So, pre-market and after-hours both trade on electronic venues outside the exchange floor. Again, there’s lower volume and wider spreads than the regular session.

The market is closed on Saturdays, Sundays, and NYSE-observed holidays. On a handful of half days each year, such as the day after Thanksgiving, the regular session closes early at 1:00 PM ET and after-hours trading ends at 5:00 PM ET instead of 8:00 PM ET. Check the live tool at the top of this page for today’s status, including early closes.

ICT Killzone Times

If you trade ICT concepts, there are specific time windows, called ICT killzone, which offer the highest win probability using this strategy. The best forex market hours to trade ICT are the London open, the New York open, and the tail end of London’s session overlapping New York’s morning. All of them run on New York time.

Check the live tool at the top of this page for which killzone is active right now in your own time zone. For the full breakdown of each killzone and why they matter, see our ICT Killzones guide. Trading only inside the New York AM and PM windows is a separate, narrower strategy known as the ICT Silver Bullet, covered in our ICT Silver Bullet guide.

What’s the Best Time to Trade Binary Options?

Now, if you’re a binary options trader, there’s no single best time for you. Again, it depends on your strategy and what you’re trading. For example, for a 60-second binary on EUR/USD, you need the volatility of the London-New York overlap. But a longer expiry on gold or a stock index can work fine in quieter hours.

Moreover, binary options are traded over-the-counter, not on a regulated exchange like NYSE or Nasdaq. Your broker sets its own quotes and decides which assets and expiries are available when. So stocks or forex market hours here really mean when your broker has that asset open, which can sometimes differ from the underlying market’s actual session.

I test binary options brokers before I write about them, and Pocket Option is the one that most consistently allows you to trade during regular market hours.

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About the Author

Edris Derakhshi

My name is Edris, and I am the founder of TradingRage, which is a trading and investment content creation agency. I began my trading journey from 2018 and have been a funded forex and crypto trader and asset manager for the last few years. I’ve also been planning content, managing technical and content SEO, and writing online content about finance and the financial markets, as it is my true passion. I’ve written numerous articles, landing pages, and market analyses (for popular websites like Finestel, CryptoQuant and CryptoPotato).