Sydney
- Sydney time
- 07:00–16:00
- Your time
- —
Opens the trading week on Monday morning; the thinnest of the four windows.
Most active AUD, NZD, JPY crosses
Free live session clock
Forex trading sessions in your local time: is the market open now?
The Sydney, Tokyo, London and New York sessions converted to your own clock, with live open or closed status, a countdown to the next open, and the windows where two sessions overlap. Daylight saving is read from your browser, so the hours are right in March and October without you touching anything.
No sign-up Updates every 30 seconds Daylight saving from your browser
The four sessions across your day
The timeline is drawn in your browser, in your own time zone.
Session by session
Tokyo
- Tokyo time
- 09:00–18:00
- Your time
- —
The main Asian window. Japan does not observe daylight saving, so its UTC hours never move.
Most active JPY pairs, AUD/JPY, Asian crosses
London
- London time
- 08:00–17:00
- Your time
- —
The largest share of daily turnover; most majors set their daily range here.
Most active EUR, GBP, CHF, the majors
New York
- New York time
- 08:00–17:00
- Your time
- —
US data releases land in this window; its close is where most brokers roll the trading day.
Most active USD pairs, CAD, gold
Overlap windows
Two sessions open at once means more participants and, usually, tighter spreads. These are the next three overlaps on your clock; London with New York is the deepest of them.
Overlap times appear in your time zone once the page runs in your browser.
The clock says when. Now pick where.
Twenty forex brokers scored on regulation, costs, platforms and safety, with the entity and the account terms behind every row.
Compare forex brokersWhy this matters
The time of day sets the spread as much as the broker does
The same pair at the same broker costs more to trade at 03:00 London time than at 14:00, because the people quoting it are asleep. Knowing which session is running, on your own clock, is the cheapest edge there is: it costs nothing and it never expires.
Liquidity follows the sun
Sydney hands over to Tokyo, Tokyo to London, London to New York. The majors are deepest when London is open, and thinnest in the gap after New York closes.
The overlap is the real trading day
For four hours London and New York quote at once. Most of the daily range in EUR/USD, GBP/USD and gold is set inside that window.
Daylight saving moves the goalposts
If your country does not switch its clocks, London and New York shift by an hour on your schedule twice a year, on different dates. Tokyo never moves.
Reference
Session hours in each centre, in UTC and in your time
The conventional hours of each centre in its own local time, what they are in UTC at the moment, and what they are on your clock. The UTC column moves with daylight saving in London, New York and Sydney; the Tokyo row never moves.
| Session | Local hours in the centre | In UTC now | In your time | Most active |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sydney | 07:00–16:00 (Australia/Sydney) | 20:00–05:00 | — | AUD, NZD, JPY crosses |
| Tokyo | 09:00–18:00 (Asia/Tokyo) | 00:00–09:00 | — | JPY pairs, AUD/JPY, Asian crosses |
| London | 08:00–17:00 (Europe/London) | 07:00–16:00 | — | EUR, GBP, CHF, the majors |
| New York | 08:00–17:00 (America/New_York) | 12:00–21:00 | — | USD pairs, CAD, gold |
Common questions
Forex sessions FAQ
What time does the forex market open and close?
The trading week opens with the Sydney session at 07:00 on Monday morning in Sydney, which is Sunday 21:00 UTC in the Australian winter and Sunday 20:00 UTC in the Australian summer, and closes with the New York session at 17:00 on Friday in New York, which is Friday 21:00 UTC in the US summer and 22:00 UTC in the US winter. In between, the four sessions hand over to each other around the clock. Brokers open and close their quotes a few minutes either side of those times, and most pause briefly around their daily rollover, so the exact schedule for your account is on your broker’s trading hours page.
Why do the session times shift by an hour twice a year?
Because London, New York and Sydney observe daylight saving time on different dates and Tokyo does not observe it at all. The UK switches on the last Sunday of March and October, the US on the second Sunday of March and the first Sunday of November, and Australia on the first Sunday of October and April. If you live somewhere without daylight saving, such as India, Pakistan, Kenya, Nigeria or the Philippines, the London and New York sessions move by an hour on your clock on those dates while the Tokyo session stays put. This page reads the zone rules from your browser, so the shift is applied automatically.
Which sessions overlap, and why does the overlap matter?
London and New York share four hours, from 08:00 to 12:00 New York time, and that window carries the largest share of daily turnover in the majors. Tokyo and London share one hour in the European winter and two in the European summer, and Sydney and Tokyo share most of the Asian morning. More participants at the same time usually means tighter spreads and faster fills, which is why day traders concentrate on the overlaps. It is a description of when liquidity is deepest, not advice on when to trade.
Is the forex market open on weekends?
No. Interbank currency trading stops after the New York close on Friday and does not resume until the Sydney open on Monday morning, so the clock on this page shows the market as closed for roughly 48 hours. Some brokers quote a small set of weekend instruments, usually crypto CFDs or a synthetic index, but not the currency pairs. Cryptocurrency exchanges trade every day of the year.
Are these session hours official?
No. Currency trading has no central exchange, so there is no official opening bell. The hours here are the conventions the industry uses, tied to the business day in each centre: 07:00 to 16:00 in Sydney, 09:00 to 18:00 in Tokyo, 08:00 to 17:00 in London and 08:00 to 17:00 in New York. Some tables shave an hour off one end or the other, and none of them is more correct than another. What the conventions capture is the shape of the day: where the participants are and when the handovers happen.
Why does my MT4 or MT5 chart show a different time from this page?
Charts run on the broker’s server time, not on yours. Many brokers set their servers to GMT+2 in winter and GMT+3 in summer so that the daily candle closes at the New York close at 17:00 Eastern Time, which keeps five daily candles in a trading week instead of six. That same moment is when the overnight swap is charged, so the server time matters for costs as well as for reading the chart. This page converts everything to the zone you pick and does not know your broker’s server offset.