Is the forex market open right now?
The short answer: probably, but not always, and which session is open matters more than whether the market is technically open. Forex has no single central exchange, so it does not open and close the way a stock exchange does. Instead it runs continuously across a global network of banks and brokers, from the moment Sydney's trading week begins on Monday morning local time until the New York close on Friday evening local time — in UTC terms, from approximately 22:00 on Sunday to approximately 22:00 on Friday. Outside that window, over the weekend, the market is genuinely shut: most brokers stop quoting prices and orders cannot fill.
Being 'open', though, is not the same as being worth trading. Within that continuous week the market hands off between four regional sessions — Sydney, Tokyo, London and New York — each centred on that city's own normal business hours. Liquidity and volatility rise and fall with which of those sessions is live, so most days the more useful question is not 'is the market open' but 'which session is open, and does it suit what I'm trading'.
The rest of this guide gives the exact times: each session's own local hours, the same times converted into UTC and eight other time zones, and the two things that shift the picture — the daily London-New York overlap, and daylight saving through the year.
The four sessions and their standard hours
Four financial centres dominate the trading day in sequence. Sydney opens the week and is usually the quietest. Tokyo follows and carries the bulk of Asian volume. London is the single largest session by turnover and sets the tone for the European day. New York then takes over for the American afternoon before the week winds down into Friday's close. Each is named for a city, but what actually defines a session is that city's own conventional business day — commonly given as roughly 8am to 5pm local time — translated into UTC.
The table below states each session's local hours and the UTC window that follows from them, using each zone's standard-time (non-daylight-saving) offset as a fixed baseline. Treat it as a framework rather than a live conversion — the daylight-saving section further down explains exactly how and when the picture shifts.
| Session | Local business hours | UTC (standard-time reference) |
|---|---|---|
| Sydney | 08:00 – 17:00 AEST | 22:00 – 07:00 (+1 day) |
| Tokyo | 09:00 – 18:00 JST | 00:00 – 09:00 |
| London | 08:00 – 17:00 GMT | 08:00 – 17:00 |
| New York | 08:00 – 17:00 EST | 13:00 – 22:00 |
Scroll the table sideways for UTC (standard-time reference)
'(+1 day)' means the session's UTC close falls on the calendar day after its UTC open. UTC itself never shifts for daylight saving, which is why it is used as the reference column here — see the next section for the full conversion into eight local time zones.
Session hours in UTC and eight other time zones
Quoting sessions in UTC only helps if you already think in UTC. The table below converts the same four session windows into New York, London, Singapore/Kuala Lumpur, Johannesburg, Lagos, Dubai and Mumbai/Delhi time, so you can read your own local hours directly rather than doing the arithmetic yourself.
Several of these zones never move: Singapore Standard Time and Malaysia Time (both UTC+8), South Africa Standard Time (UTC+2), West Africa Time (UTC+1), Gulf Standard Time (UTC+4) and India Standard Time (UTC+5:30) do not observe daylight saving at all, so those columns hold year-round. Tokyo (JST, UTC+9) is the same — Japan does not observe daylight saving either — which is why the Tokyo row's UTC window is the one conversion in this whole guide that never needs revisiting.
| Session | UTC | New York (ET) | London (GMT) | Singapore / KL (SGT/MYT) | Johannesburg (SAST) | Lagos (WAT) | Dubai (GST) | Mumbai / Delhi (IST) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sydney | 22:00 – 07:00 (+1d) | 17:00 – 02:00 (+1d) | 22:00 – 07:00 (+1d) | 06:00 – 15:00 | 00:00 – 09:00 | 23:00 – 08:00 (+1d) | 02:00 – 11:00 | 03:30 – 12:30 |
| Tokyo | 00:00 – 09:00 | 19:00 (prev day) – 04:00 | 00:00 – 09:00 | 08:00 – 17:00 | 02:00 – 11:00 | 01:00 – 10:00 | 04:00 – 13:00 | 05:30 – 14:30 |
| London | 08:00 – 17:00 | 03:00 – 12:00 | 08:00 – 17:00 | 16:00 – 01:00 (+1d) | 10:00 – 19:00 | 09:00 – 18:00 | 12:00 – 21:00 | 13:30 – 22:30 |
| New York | 13:00 – 22:00 | 08:00 – 17:00 | 13:00 – 22:00 | 21:00 – 06:00 (+1d) | 15:00 – 00:00 (+1d) | 14:00 – 23:00 | 17:00 – 02:00 (+1d) | 18:30 – 03:30 (+1d) |
Scroll the table sideways for Mumbai / Delhi (IST)
All times use each zone's standard (non-daylight-saving) offset: UTC+0 London, UTC-5 New York, UTC+8 Singapore/Kuala Lumpur, UTC+2 Johannesburg, UTC+1 Lagos, UTC+4 Dubai, UTC+5:30 Mumbai/Delhi. Tokyo, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Johannesburg, Lagos, Dubai, Mumbai and Delhi never observe daylight saving, so those columns are fixed year-round; London and New York each shift an hour during their own DST window, and Sydney shifts on the opposite, Southern Hemisphere calendar — see 'How daylight saving shifts these hours' below. '(+1d)' marks a session that ends on the calendar day after it starts in that time zone; 'prev day' marks one that starts on the day before.
How daylight saving shifts these hours
London and New York each observe a form of daylight saving that moves clocks forward by an hour in spring and back again in autumn — the UK and EU together on one schedule, the US and Canada on a schedule that starts and ends roughly a week apart from it in most years. Because the two do not switch on exactly the same date, there is a short window each spring and autumn when the London-New York overlap temporarily runs five hours instead of four, and when the two sessions' hours line up slightly differently than the standard-time tables above show.
Australia observes daylight saving too, but on the opposite, Southern Hemisphere calendar: its clocks move forward for its own summer, which falls during the Northern Hemisphere's winter, and back again for its winter, which falls during the Northern Hemisphere's summer. The practical effect is that Sydney is essentially never on 'standard time' at the same moment London and New York are also on standard time — when one region's clocks are shifted for its own summer, the others typically have not shifted yet, or have already shifted back. That is exactly why the nine-zone table above is a fixed reference baseline rather than a single day that occurs on the calendar; it is still the right structure to learn the sessions from, but the live UTC time of a session can run an hour earlier or later than shown, depending on the date.
None of Tokyo, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Johannesburg, Lagos, Dubai or Mumbai/Delhi observe daylight saving, so nothing above ever needs adjusting for those seven zones — only the London and New York columns move, and Sydney on its own opposite calendar. If a session's exact hours matter to your trading around a clock-change date, the reliable fix is the same as always: check the session times your own broker's platform actually quotes, since that reflects its server's current offset rather than a reference table like this one.
The overlaps: where liquidity peaks
The busiest part of the trading day is when two sessions are open simultaneously. By far the most important is the London-New York overlap, roughly 13:00 to 17:00 UTC (08:00 to 12:00 New York time), when the two largest financial centres are trading at once. Liquidity is at its highest, spreads on major pairs are typically at their tightest, and price movement is usually strongest — and it is also when the bulk of US economic data is released, which can add sharp, event-driven moves on top of the session's normal volume.
Two smaller handovers matter too. Tokyo and London share a short window in the European morning as Asian desks wind down and European ones start up, picking up activity in yen and sterling pairs. Sydney and Tokyo overlap for longer, in the middle of the Asian night by UTC, but it is the quietest of the three — ranges are narrower and it tends to suit AUD, NZD and JPY pairs more than the majors that dominate the London-New York window.
More liquidity is not automatically easier trading. Faster, larger swings during the busy overlaps can reach a stop-loss more quickly than a calm session would, and leveraged forex and CFD trading carries a high risk of loss regardless of which session you trade in.
| Overlap | UTC | New York (ET) | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|---|
| London + New York | 13:00 – 17:00 | 08:00 – 12:00 | The deepest liquidity of the day; tightest spreads and the largest moves, and when most US data lands. |
| Tokyo + London | 08:00 – 09:00 | 03:00 – 04:00 | A short handover as European desks open while Asia closes; activity picks up in EUR and GBP pairs. |
| Sydney + Tokyo | 00:00 – 07:00 | 19:00 (prev day) – 02:00 | The quietest overlap; ranges are narrower and best suited to AUD, NZD and JPY pairs. |
Scroll the table sideways for Why it matters
Overlap windows use the same standard-time reference as the tables above and shift together with the London and New York columns during DST.
Matching your trading to a session
There is no single best session — the right window depends on your strategy, your own time zone and how much volatility you want to trade through. A trader chasing movement and tight spreads on EUR/USD or GBP/USD will naturally gravitate to the London-New York overlap. Someone who prefers calmer, more contained ranges, or who can only realistically trade in the evening, may find the Asian session — Tokyo, or the Sydney-Tokyo overlap — a better fit.
It also helps to trade a pair during its own home session where possible. European and US majors tend to be most liquid during London and New York hours; USD/JPY, AUD/USD and AUD/JPY often see their cleanest moves while Tokyo and Sydney are live. Trading well outside a pair's core hours can mean thinner liquidity and wider spreads, whichever zone you are trading from. For a live read on how pairs are actually moving right now, our currencies page updates through every session.
Whichever session you settle on, consistency beats chasing every hour the market is open. Learning how your chosen pairs typically behave during the same one or two sessions, repeated, teaches you more than trying to watch the whole 24-hour week — and it is far less likely to burn you out in the process.