Forex Market Hours: Sessions, Overlaps and Best Times
Forex market hours explained: when the Sydney, Tokyo, London and New York sessions run, why the overlaps matter and how to choose your trading hours.
The currency market is open around the clock on weekdays, so it is tempting to think the time you trade does not matter. It matters a great deal: the same pair can be busy and cheap to trade at one hour, and thin, jumpy and expensive a few hours later.
Quick answer: Forex market hours run from Sunday evening to Friday evening, about 22:00 London time on each side, 24 hours a day in between. Trading passes through four sessions: Sydney, Tokyo, London and New York. The busiest window is usually the London–New York overlap, roughly 13:00–17:00 London time, when spreads are tightest.
Forex market hours: open 24 hours, five days a week
A stock exchange has a building and an opening bell. The forex market has neither. It is a network of banks, funds, companies and brokers trading directly with one another across the world, so there is no single place that opens or closes. Instead, the market follows the working day as it moves around the globe.
The week starts when the first major centres in Asia and the Pacific come online on Monday morning, local time. In Europe that is still Sunday evening. By convention, most platforms treat 5 p.m. New York time on Sunday as the start of the trading week and 5 p.m. New York time on Friday as the end. For most of the year that is 22:00 in London on both days.
A few practical details are worth knowing from the start:
- Your broker’s exact hours can differ. Some open a few minutes after the conventional time, some quote certain pairs for shorter hours, and many pause briefly around the daily rollover. Check the trading hours listed in your platform’s symbol information rather than relying on a general rule.
- Your platform’s clock is probably not your clock. Many trading platforms run on a “server time” that is two or three hours ahead of London, chosen so that each daily candle closes at 5 p.m. New York time. That is why a platform can show 00:00 when it is 22:00 where you are.
- Holidays thin the market rather than closing it. On days such as Christmas and New Year, trading continues, but with far fewer participants. Spreads widen and prices can jump on small orders.
The 5 p.m. New York moment also matters every weekday, not just on Friday. It is the daily rollover, when positions held open are rolled to the next day and charged or credited swap, the overnight interest. Liquidity is often at its lowest in the hour around rollover, and spreads can briefly widen several times over. If you trade short term, that is a window to step back from.
Being open does not mean being equally useful. To use forex market hours well, you need to know who is trading at each hour, and that is what the sessions describe.
The four forex trading sessions
A trading session is the stretch of the day when one major financial centre is at work. Traders usually name four: Sydney, Tokyo, London and New York. Their hours are conventions rather than official times, since nobody rings a bell, but they are a reliable guide to when each region’s banks and companies are active.
Each session has its own character:
- Sydney opens the week. It is the smallest of the four and usually the quietest, with the Australian and New Zealand dollars doing most of the moving.
- Tokyo brings in Asia’s largest centre. The Japanese yen is most active here, along with the Australian dollar. Price often moves in ranges during these hours, though Japanese data and Bank of Japan news can change that.
- London is the biggest centre in the world for currency trading. When London opens, activity jumps across almost every pair, and the euro, the pound and the Swiss franc see their largest moves.
- New York brings in the US dollar’s home market and most of the important American economic data. Its first half overlaps with London; its second half is noticeably calmer.
The clock below converts the sessions into your own time zone and shows which are open right now.
Open now: …
The four forex sessions converted to your local time, with a live marker for now. The outer ring marks the London–New York overlap, usually the busiest hours of the day.
Here are the same sessions written out in UTC for both halves of the year. Each session keeps its local hours; only the UTC times move.
| Session | Local hours (approx.) | UTC, late March to late October | UTC, early November to mid-March |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sydney | 07:00–16:00 Sydney | 21:00–06:00 | 20:00–05:00 |
| Tokyo | 09:00–18:00 Tokyo | 00:00–09:00 | 00:00–09:00 |
| London | 08:00–17:00 London | 07:00–16:00 | 08:00–17:00 |
| New York | 08:00–17:00 New York | 12:00–21:00 | 13:00–22:00 |
| London–New York overlap | 13:00–17:00 London | 12:00–16:00 | 13:00–17:00 |
Session times vary slightly between sources, so treat these as approximate. Our Academy lesson on market sessions uses the same northern-summer UTC times, so the two line up.
Daylight saving: why session times move
If you have ever found that the New York open “arrived early” one week in March, daylight saving is the reason. Three of the four centres change their clocks, and they do not all change on the same day.
- London moves forward on the last Sunday in March and back on the last Sunday in October.
- New York moves forward on the second Sunday in March and back on the first Sunday in November.
- Sydney is in the southern hemisphere, so it changes in the opposite season: forward on the first Sunday in October and back on the first Sunday in April.
- Tokyo does not use daylight saving at all.
The result is that for most of the year London is five hours ahead of New York, but for two or three weeks in March and about a week around the turn of October and November, the gap shrinks to four hours. During those weeks the New York session, and every US data release with it, happens an hour earlier on a London clock.
Here is what the sessions look like on a London and a New York clock. The first time in each cell is for the northern summer; the second, after the slash, is for the northern winter.
| Session | London time (summer / winter) | New York time (summer / winter) |
|---|---|---|
| Sydney | 22:00–07:00 / 20:00–05:00 | 17:00–02:00 / 15:00–00:00 |
| Tokyo | 01:00–10:00 / 00:00–09:00 | 20:00–05:00 / 19:00–04:00 |
| London | 08:00–17:00 / same | 03:00–12:00 / same |
| New York | 13:00–22:00 / same | 08:00–17:00 / same |
The Sydney winter figures assume Sydney is on its own summer time, which it is from early October to early April. In the few weeks when the hemispheres are out of step, Sydney’s open sits an hour away from either column. The UK government publishes the exact dates on its clocks change page.
You do not need to memorise any of this. As a practical rule, twice a year, in March and in October to November, expect session times to shift by an hour, and check your platform clock and your economic calendar against your own clock in the weeks around each change.
Session overlaps: when the market is busiest
Activity in the currency market is not spread evenly across the day. It rises when a big centre opens, falls when one closes, and peaks when two big centres are open at the same time. More participants means more liquidity: more buyers and sellers at every price, so trades fill quickly and the gap between bid and ask narrows.
The London–New York overlap
The London–New York overlap, from about 13:00 to 17:00 London time (08:00 to 12:00 in New York), is usually the most active part of the day. The Bank for International Settlements surveys global currency trading every three years, and its Triennial Survey consistently finds the United Kingdom is the largest trading centre by a wide margin, with the United States second. When the two largest centres are open together, a large share of the world’s currency business is happening at once.
Several things cluster in this window. Most major US data, including jobs, inflation and retail sales, is released at 8:30 a.m. New York time, early in the overlap. European traders are adjusting positions before they go home. And at 16:00 London time, a widely used benchmark exchange rate, often called the London 4 p.m. fix, is set, which can produce a burst of activity just before it.
The smaller overlaps
The Tokyo–London overlap is short, about an hour or two depending on the season, but the London open regularly brings a sharp move as European traders react to what happened overnight. The Sydney–Tokyo overlap is the calmest of the three. Australian and Japanese pairs can be active then, but for most other pairs it is a quiet period.
The worst hours for liquidity are usually the gap after New York winds down and before Tokyo gets going, which includes the daily rollover. If you notice spreads suddenly widening on your platform late in the evening in Europe, this is why.
The best time to trade forex (and the worst)
There is no single best time to trade forex for everyone. There is a best time for your pairs, your method and your day.
Spreads change through the day
The spread is the gap between the bid and the ask, and it is what most retail traders pay to open each trade. It is not fixed. In busy hours, when lots of banks are quoting, it is usually at its tightest. In thin hours it widens, sometimes to several times its usual size. The Academy lesson on bid, ask and spread explains why.
That difference adds up quickly. Try the calculator below: compare a 1-pip spread with a 3-pip spread at the same number of trades and see what timing alone does to a year of trading costs.
Spread cost = spread in pips × pip value for your trade size. It is paid on every trade, whether it wins or loses.
If you take ten trades a week at one mini lot each, a 1-pip spread costs $10 a week. Move the same trades into quiet hours at 3 pips and it becomes $30 a week, or $1,440 a year over 48 weeks, for exactly the same decisions. Our guide to what a pip is shows how that per-pip value is worked out.
Match the pair to the session
A currency is usually most active when its home market is open, and when another big centre is trading against it. So the best time to trade forex depends heavily on which pairs you watch.
If you can only trade in the evening in Asia, there is little point watching EUR/GBP; USD/JPY or AUD/USD will give you more to work with. If you trade after work in the UK, you are in New York’s afternoon, which is calmer than its morning, and you may find fewer clean setups.
Fit the hours to your life, not the other way round
The overlap is often called the best time to trade, but it is only the best time if you can be present, calm and undistracted. A plan that requires you to be awake at 3 a.m. will break the first week you are tired. Pick a regular window you can keep, write it into your trading plan, and choose pairs that suit it. The Academy lesson on building a routine helps you structure those hours.
Stopping matters as much as starting. Having the market open all day makes it very easy to keep looking for one more trade, which is how overtrading starts. A fixed window gives you a natural finishing line. Our guide to trading psychology goes into why that boundary is so useful.
News releases, session opens and fast markets
The busiest moments of the day are not always the best ones to trade. Two kinds of moment can turn a normal market into a fast one: scheduled economic releases and the first minutes of a big session.
Scheduled data
The economic calendar lists every scheduled release, with the time, the previous figure and the market’s forecast. Releases cluster around session opens. UK and eurozone data tend to arrive in the London morning; most important US data comes at 8:30 a.m. New York time. The most closely watched of all is the monthly US jobs report, non-farm payrolls, usually released on the first Friday of the month. That is 13:30 London time for most of the year, but 12:30 during the weeks when the daylight-saving dates are out of step.
| Time | Cur. | Impact | Event | Previous | Forecast | Actual |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13:30 | USD | ●●● | Non-farm payrolls (jobs added) | 185k | 170k | — |
Slide the actual payrolls figure and see how the gap between actual and forecast, not the number itself, drives the reaction. The time shown is London time for most of the year.
The Academy lessons on using the economic calendar and on jobs data and NFP explain what each release measures and why the surprise matters more than the headline.
Spreads and slippage around releases
In the seconds before a major release, many liquidity providers pull their prices. Spreads widen, sometimes dramatically, and when the number comes out price can jump several pips at once. Orders placed in that moment may fill well away from the price you saw. That difference is called slippage. Toggle between a calm market and a news release below to see it.
Illustrative. In a calm session a market order fills at or close to the price you see. Around a major release, market and stop orders can fill several pips away; limit orders fill at your price or not at all.
The same thing happens on a smaller scale at the London and New York opens. The first 10 to 15 minutes can be erratic as orders that built up overnight hit the market at once. None of this makes news or the opens off limits, but it does mean you should decide your approach in advance: stand aside, reduce size, or accept wider costs knowingly. The lesson on execution and slippage covers how different order types behave.
Weekend gaps and the Friday close
Forex market hours have one hard edge: the weekend. From Friday evening to Sunday evening, retail platforms stop quoting most pairs, but the world does not stop. Elections, central bank comments, conflicts and policy announcements can all happen on a Saturday. When the market reopens, the first price reflects everything that changed, and it can be some distance from Friday’s close.
That jump is a weekend gap. On a candlestick chart it shows up as an empty space between Friday’s last candle and Monday’s first. Most weekends the gap is small or invisible. Occasionally it is large, and it can carry price straight past orders that were sitting in between.
A stop loss is an instruction to close at the next available price once your level is touched. If price never trades at your level because it opened beyond it, the stop fills at the first price available. That is why a weekend gap can turn a carefully sized 1% loss into something bigger. The same can happen overnight on major news, but the weekend is the one gap you can see coming every week. Our guide on where to place a stop loss covers stop placement in more depth, and the Academy lesson on stop-loss placement shows how to size trades from the stop.
Weekend gaps also make the Friday close a little odd. Some traders cut positions late on Friday, liquidity thins as the US afternoon wears on, and spreads can widen in the final hour. If your plan allows trades to be held over the weekend, write down when and why; if it does not, set a fixed time on Friday after which you open nothing new.
Common mistakes with forex market hours
Trading the dead hours because that is when you are free
The market is open, but it is thin. Spreads are wider, moves are smaller and less reliable, and breakouts often fail. If your free time falls in a quiet session, trade the pairs that are active then, or use pending orders placed during busier hours.
Forgetting about daylight saving
A release you know as “13:30” will be at 12:30 for a few weeks each spring and autumn. Traders who do not adjust either miss the move or, worse, are caught in a position at the moment of release. Check the calendar’s times against your clock every March and October.
Reading your platform’s server time as your own time
If your platform runs two or three hours ahead of you, an alarm set from a platform timestamp will be wrong. Know the offset between the platform clock and your own, and set your trading window in local time.
Holding risk over the weekend without deciding to
Many traders forget it is Friday. A position that was fine on Thursday carries an extra, unpriced risk over the weekend. Make holding or closing a conscious decision, and log it in your trading journal so you can see over time whether weekend holds help or hurt.
Expecting the same spread at every hour
A broker’s advertised typical spread usually reflects busy hours. At rollover, at the open, or around news, the real spread can be several times wider. Check the live spread before every trade, and factor quiet-hour costs into your expectations. When you compare providers, look at how their spreads behave across the day, as our guide to how to choose a forex broker explains.
Frequently asked questions
What time does the forex market open?
By convention, the forex week opens at 5 p.m. New York time on Sunday, which is 22:00 in London for most of the year, as the first Asia-Pacific centres start Monday trading. Exact opening times vary a little between brokers, so check the trading hours shown in your platform for each pair.
What time does the forex market close on Friday?
Trading normally ends at 5 p.m. New York time on Friday, which is 22:00 in London for most of the year. Liquidity thins in the final hours and spreads can widen, so many traders stop opening new positions earlier in the afternoon and decide in advance whether to hold anything over the weekend.
What is the best time to trade forex?
For most major pairs, the London–New York overlap, roughly 13:00 to 17:00 London time, is the busiest window, with the tightest spreads. But the best time for you is the window you can trade consistently and calmly, with pairs that are active in those hours. Yen and Australian dollar pairs suit Asian hours.
Is the forex market open on weekends?
No. Retail forex platforms stop quoting most pairs from Friday evening to Sunday evening. News can still happen over the weekend, so Monday's opening price can be well away from Friday's close. That jump is called a weekend gap, and it can fill stop losses at worse prices than planned.
Do forex session times change with daylight saving?
Yes. London, New York and Sydney change their clocks on different dates, and Tokyo does not change at all. In UTC terms the sessions shift by an hour, and for a few weeks in March and around late October to early November, London and New York are only four hours apart. Always check your platform clock.
Why are spreads wider at certain times of day?
Spreads reflect liquidity. When fewer banks and traders are active, such as after New York closes, around the daily rollover or on holidays, there are fewer prices competing, so the gap between bid and ask widens. Spreads also widen briefly before major economic releases as liquidity providers step back.
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