Financial Analyst/ Guest author, RADEX MARKETS
Lee W. is a seasoned professional trader with over 10 years of experience. Passionate about sharing valuable expertise and unique market insights, Lee W. now serves as an external and independent market analyst for RADEX MARKETS.
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Trade from a timetable copied online and the opening minutes can quickly catch you with a wider spread than expected or leave an order waiting on Sunday for a market your broker has not opened yet.
This guide settles the four session times on a UK clock, keeps winter and summer separate, explains why different Sunday-open and Friday-close answers circulate, and shows what changes during the weeks when the UK and US alter their clocks on different dates.
In normal aligned weeks, the UK times are GMT (winter): Sunday 22:00 to Friday 22:00; BST (summer): Sunday 22:00 to Friday 22:00, with continuous trading in between as Sydney, Tokyo, London and New York rotate in that order. During the short UK–US clock-change gaps, the New York-based weekly boundary can temporarily move to 21:00 UK time. The London session itself remains 08:00–17:00 on a UK clock all year.
The normal weekly boundary is based on 17:00 New York, while the temporary 21:00 UK exception follows from the different UK and US daylight-saving dates.
The forex market normally opens at 22:00 on Sunday and closes at 22:00 on Friday in UK time, with a temporary move to 21:00 during the UK–US clock-change gaps. These are practical retail-market benchmarks rather than the opening and closing bell of one exchange, so a broker’s published product hours always take priority.
Trading continues through the intervening weekdays because forex is an over-the-counter market with no single central exchange. Banks, dealers and other participants trade across global financial centres, allowing Sydney, Tokyo, London and New York to pass liquidity from one region to the next. One centre is therefore already active as another is approaching its close, although liquidity and spreads can change considerably during each handover.
An over-the-counter market is one in which trades are agreed directly between participants such as banks, dealers and brokers, rather than on a central exchange with a single order book. Prices and trading hours therefore depend on who is quoting, which is why forex has no official opening bell.
Every time in this article is shown on a UK clock: GMT in winter and BST in summer. If a timetable elsewhere does not match, it is commonly displaying US Eastern time, UTC or the broker’s server time instead. For this reason, UK traders should set their platform to UK time where possible and check their own broker’s contract specifications before leaving an order over the weekend.
Event |
UK time (GMT, winter) |
UK time (BST, summer) |
|---|---|---|
| Market opens, Sunday | 22:00 normally; 21:00 during the March UK–US clock gap | 22:00 normally; 21:00 during the October UK–US clock gap |
| Market closes, Friday | 22:00 normally; 21:00 during the March UK–US clock gap | 22:00 normally; 21:00 during the October UK–US clock gap |
| Daily rollover | 22:00 normally; 21:00 during the March UK–US clock gap | 22:00 normally; 21:00 during the October UK–US clock gap |
Timing note: the table converts the widely used 17:00 New York weekly boundary and rollover into UK time. Individual brokers can open later, close earlier or insert short maintenance breaks, so their published schedule is the final reference for an executable trade.
The four forex sessions follow the working hours of major financial centres rather than officially announced trading windows.
This is why the London session hours quoted across the industry do not always agree. Some timetables use each centre’s local business day, others convert everything from US Eastern time or UTC, and some quietly combine summer and winter hours in the same figure. On a UK clock, the London session is fixed at 08:00–17:00 throughout the year; what changes is where Tokyo, Sydney and New York appear relative to it as the relevant countries alter their clocks.
The table below uses a common nine-hour session convention for planning purposes. The Sydney and New York rows can temporarily move by another hour when their daylight-saving dates do not line up with the UK, so those exceptional weeks should always be checked separately.
Session |
UK hours (GMT) |
UK hours (BST) |
Main pairs |
Liquidity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sydney | 22:00–07:00 | 23:00–08:00 | AUD/USD, NZD/USD | Low |
| Tokyo | 00:00–09:00 | 01:00–10:00 | USD/JPY, AUD/JPY | Moderate |
| London | 08:00–17:00 | 08:00–17:00 | GBP/USD, EUR/USD | Highest |
| New York | 13:00–22:00 | 14:00–23:00 | EUR/USD, USD/CAD | High |
These hours are therefore best treated as practical planning windows rather than exchange-controlled opening and closing times.
The Sydney session is the first major session of the new trading week and falls in the middle of the night for UK traders. Liquidity is usually at its thinnest here, with Australasian pairs such as AUD/USD and NZD/USD among the few instruments attracting meaningful regional volume. Orders can sit inside a much wider spread, while the same position size may slip further than it would once Tokyo or London is fully active. Price ranges can look convincing on the chart during these hours but often fail to hold when broader liquidity returns.
The Tokyo session follows Sydney and overlaps with it for several hours, bringing the strongest activity in yen and other Asian currency pairs. It still falls in the early morning for UK traders, when sterling and euro pairs commonly consolidate inside comparatively narrow ranges. Breakout traders can be punished by false moves during this quieter window because a brief push beyond support or resistance may lack enough participation to continue. In exchange, range traders often get cleaner boundaries to work with before London volume arrives and changes the character of the market.
The London session is the largest forex session by global trading volume, and much of the day’s movement in sterling and euro pairs is commonly completed during it. On a UK clock, it runs from 08:00 to 17:00 all year and does not move on a British trader’s watch when the clocks change; only its relationship with the other sessions shifts. Price can move fastest during the first half hour as London orders arrive, sometimes covering the range built throughout the Asian session in one push. For a UK trader, this is the only major session that requires no mental time-zone conversion.
The New York session opens during the UK afternoon, overlaps with London for several hours and contains many of the most closely watched US economic releases. Spreads can widen noticeably in the minutes surrounding figures such as inflation, employment or GDP data, even though the wider overlap usually provides deep liquidity. Once London closes, price often loses direction as European participation drops and the US session moves into its quieter second half. The late New York session reaches into the UK night without the forex market being closed, so anyone holding a position must consider thinner liquidity and overnight financing before leaving it open.
London is the only session that connects to both the end of the Asian day and the start of the US day, so a UK trader meets two overlaps of completely different character within one day.
An overlap means two sources of market participation are active at the same time. Quote depth generally improves, spreads on major pairs usually narrow and price can cover more ground in a shorter period because more orders are competing around the same levels. The benefit is more efficient execution in normal conditions, but the downside is that a fast-moving market can also reach a stop much sooner. Volatility is therefore not automatically good for profit; it increases both the available movement and the speed at which a trading error can become expensive.
Overlap |
UK hours (GMT) |
UK hours (BST) |
Pairs most affected |
Impact on UK traders |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| London and Tokyo | 08:00–09:00 | 08:00–10:00 | GBP/JPY, EUR/JPY | Early-morning range breaks, thinner depth than the afternoon |
| London and New York | 13:00–17:00 | 14:00–17:00 | GBP/USD, EUR/USD | Deepest quotes of the UK day, tightest spreads, fastest moves |
The table shows the standard seasonal planning windows used in this article. The London–New York overlap can move temporarily during the weeks when the UK and US change their clocks on different dates.
The London–Tokyo overlap falls in the UK early morning, with the Asian session winding down just as London participation begins to arrive, making yen crosses such as GBP/JPY and EUR/JPY the instruments most directly affected. Market depth is still a step below the afternoon London–New York overlap, so an early move may not have the same order flow behind it. For example, GBP/JPY might push above the high formed during Tokyo, retreat briefly and then test that level again as London desks become active. The Asian range is often challenged for the first time in this window, but the move should not be treated as established direction until London volume has properly entered the market.
The London–New York overlap falls in the UK afternoon and is normally the deepest-quoted, tightest-spread part of the UK trading day. A large share of the intraday movement in major pairs is concentrated here, while US inflation, employment and growth releases can add sudden order flow to an already active market. For example, a US employment release might drive GBP/USD through the high formed during the London morning and turn a measured move into a rapid breakout within seconds. The available movement and the speed at which a poorly placed stop can be taken out are therefore two sides of the same overlap.
Neither overlap is automatically better; they simply have different characters. The morning overlap is a handover, with Asian volume leaving and London volume arriving, so direction is often unresolved while the market tests the overnight range. The afternoon overlap has the two largest pools of liquidity active together, making a move more likely to attract enough participation to run its full intraday course. Treating both periods as the same kind of “overlap” is therefore a common misjudgement.
Read more: Forex Volatility: Measuring and Trading Currency Pair Swings
The UK–US clock change gap occurs because Britain and the United States do not begin and end daylight saving time on the same dates. The US normally moves to daylight time on the second Sunday in March and returns to standard time on the first Sunday in November, while the UK moves forward on the last Sunday in March and back on the last Sunday in October. This creates a two- or three-week gap each spring and a shorter gap each autumn in which New York sits one hour earlier on a UK clock.
During normal aligned periods, an 08:00 New York open appears at 13:00 in the UK whether Britain is using GMT or BST: EST is five hours behind GMT, while EDT is five hours behind BST. During a mismatch, the difference falls to four hours, moving the New York session to 12:00–21:00 UK time and the London–New York overlap to 12:00–17:00. US economic releases tied to Eastern Time also arrive one hour earlier for a UK trader during these windows.
Most generic forex timetables mislead readers in precisely these weeks because they assume Britain and the US change their clocks together. A schedule that is correct for most of the year can therefore place the New York open, a US data release or the daily rollover one hour late. For this reason, traders should reconfirm the overlap window and all scheduled release times against a UK clock before planning the day.
Year |
UK clocks change |
US clocks change |
Misaligned window |
Effect on New York session in UK time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 spring | Forward: 29 March | Forward: 8 March | 8–29 March | 12:00–21:00; London overlap 12:00–17:00 |
| 2026 autumn | Back: 25 October | Back: 1 November | 25 October–1 November | 12:00–21:00; London overlap 12:00–17:00 |
| 2027 spring | Forward: 28 March | Forward: 14 March | 14–28 March | 12:00–21:00; London overlap 12:00–17:00 |
The UK dates are published by GOV.UK, while the US dates follow the federally mandated second-Sunday-in-March and first-Sunday-in-November rules.
The 2027 US date is the scheduled date under current federal law. As of 2 October 2026, a House-approved proposal to make US daylight saving permanent was still awaiting Senate approval, so traders should confirm that the law has not changed before relying on the 2027 row.
The practical rule is simple: during every March and late-October clock gap, check the platform clock, the broker’s rollover notice and the release time shown by an economic calendar configured for London. That five-minute check is considerably cheaper than discovering the difference when a data release arrives an hour earlier than expected.
Three different answers commonly circulate for the Sunday forex open: 21:00, 22:00 and 23:00 UK time. They cannot all describe every trading account because forex has no central exchange ringing an opening bell. The tradable time is set by the broker’s product schedule, while the time shown on the platform may be its server time rather than GMT or BST.
Many forex brokers run their servers on GMT+2 in winter and GMT+3 in summer so that each trading day ends at 17:00 New York time. That convention helps produce five complete daily candles per week, but it does not create a universal Sunday opening time. The reliable answer is the one published by the reader’s own broker under market hours, contract specifications, product details or trading conditions. Holiday schedules and service notices should also be checked because they can temporarily override the normal timetable.
Server time is the clock a broker’s trading server uses to stamp prices, candles and orders. It often differs from the trader’s local time, so a platform left on server time can show the market open or a data release at an hour that does not match the UK clock.
The same rule applies at the other end of the week. A general timetable may place the Friday boundary at 22:00 GMT or 22:00 BST, but an individual broker can stop accepting orders earlier, close a particular product later or insert a short maintenance break. During the UK–US clock-change gaps covered in the previous section, a weekly boundary tied to New York can also appear one hour earlier on a UK clock. For this reason, the broker’s published UK-time conversion is more useful than a time copied from another website.
No executable prices are available between the Friday close and the Sunday reopening. If political, economic or other market-moving news arrives during that gap, the first quote of the new week may appear above or below Friday’s final price without trading through the levels in between. A standard stop cannot execute while the market is closed; if the first available quote is already beyond its trigger, it normally fills at the next obtainable price instead. Spreads are also usually wider during the opening period because fewer liquidity providers are quoting, so the same position can cost more to exit than it would during London or New York hours.
Consider two traders who both bought GBP/USD late on Friday 31 January 2025, shortly before the weekly close, and left the position open. The United States announced new tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China on Saturday 1 February, and GBP/USD reopened sharply lower on Monday 3 February. The figures below are an illustration built on that weekend's publicly recorded daily prices and the published RAW-account starting spread of 0.2 pips; they are not a RADEX MARKETS quote.
Trade input |
Figure used |
|---|---|
| Friday bid | 1.24240 |
| Friday ask and long entry | 1.24242 |
| Position size | 0.5 lots / 50,000 units |
| GBP/USD rate used to convert USD pip value into GBP | 1.2424 |
| Trader A stop-loss / profit target | 1.22800 / 1.27000 |
| Trader B stop-loss / profit target | 1.23500 / 1.25700 |
| First Monday quote | 1.2291 (Monday open); Monday low 1.2250 |
The spread paid on entry is the difference between the ask and bid:
(1.24242 − 1.24240) × 10,000 = 0.2 pips
For GBP/USD, one pip equals 0.0001. As USD is the quote currency, the pip value is first calculated in dollars and then converted into pounds:
50,000 units × 0.0001 = $5.00 per pip
$5.00 ÷ GBP/USD rate 1.2424 = £4.02 per pip
Trader A's planned stop distance, potential reward and risk-to-reward ratio are:
(1.24242 − 1.22800) × 10,000 = 144.2 pips at risk
(1.27000 − 1.24242) × 10,000 = 275.8 pips of potential reward
275.8 reward pips ÷ 144.2 risk pips = 1:1.91
144.2 pips × £4.02 per pip = £580.33 planned loss if the stop fills at its level
Trader B's tighter stop gives:
(1.24242 − 1.23500) × 10,000 = 74.2 pips at risk
(1.25700 − 1.24242) × 10,000 = 145.8 pips of potential reward
145.8 reward pips ÷ 74.2 risk pips = 1:1.96
74.2 pips × £4.02 per pip = £298.62 planned loss if the stop fills at its level
These figures exclude commission, overnight financing and any difference between the stop trigger and the actual execution price.
Outcome One: The Market Does Not Gap Through the Stop
Trader A's stop at 1.22800 sits below the first Monday quote of 1.2291, so the position survives the reopening. Price later falls through the stop and the sell order fills at 1.22790. The execution slippage, total price loss and cash loss are:
(1.22800 − 1.22790) × 10,000 = 1.0 pip of slippage
(1.24242 − 1.22790) × 10,000 = 145.2 pips actually lost
145.2 pips × £4.02 per pip = £584.35 actual loss
The order has filled normally because an executable price existed close to the stop. The result is slightly worse than the £580.33 planned, mainly because the spread was still wide, but the market did not reopen beyond the trigger.
Outcome Two: The Market Gaps Through the Stop
Trader B's stop at 1.23500 is already above the first Monday quote of 1.2291, so the first available fill is 1.22910. The distance beyond the stop is:
(1.23500 − 1.22910) × 10,000 = 59.0 pips beyond the stop
The total loss is then calculated from the original entry to the actual fill:
(1.24242 − 1.22910) × 10,000 = 133.2 pips actually lost
133.2 pips × £4.02 per pip = £536.06 actual loss
The additional loss created by the gap is:
£536.06 actual loss − £298.62 planned loss = £237.44 extra loss
In the second outcome, the stop still triggers the exit, but it cannot supply a price that never existed: Trader B planned to risk £298.62 and lost £536.06, almost as much as Trader A, whose stop was nearly twice as far away. The execution report should therefore be checked against the first available bid and ask rather than against the chart's midpoint alone. This is why holding a leveraged position across the Friday close requires both the planned stop loss and the possible weekend gap to be included in the risk decision.
Read more: Gap trading strategy: how traders read and trade market gaps
Forex rollover is the point at which an open position passes from one trading day into the next for settlement and financing purposes. A position held through that cut-off normally receives an overnight adjustment, also called a swap or rollover charge, which may be debited from or credited to the trading account depending on the pair, direction and broker rate.
The widely used rollover point is 17:00 in New York. During the normally aligned clock periods, that converts to the following UK times:
Period |
New York rollover |
UK rollover time |
|---|---|---|
| UK winter: GMT and New York on EST | 17:00 | 22:00 GMT |
| UK summer: BST and New York on EDT | 17:00 | 22:00 BST |
Although both rows show 22:00, the underlying time zones are different. During the short UK–US clock-change gaps explained earlier that New York remains only four hours behind the UK, so the same 17:00 New York rollover temporarily arrives at 21:00 UK time. A broker may also use its own server cut-off, which is why the contract specification remains the final reference for the actual account adjustment.
Wednesday is different because spot forex normally settles on a T+2 basis. A position carried through Wednesday rollover picks up the financing associated with the weekend settlement period, so the adjustment is usually three times the normal daily amount. The Wednesday cut-off is therefore normally 22:00 UK time, temporarily moving to 21:00 during the UK–US clock gaps. Public holidays can alter the multiplier or the day on which it is applied, so the broker’s current rollover calendar should be checked before holding a position through a shortened settlement week.
T+2 settlement means a spot forex trade is settled two business days after the trade date. Because a position held through Wednesday’s cut-off settles across the weekend, it carries three days of financing rather than one.
Liquidity can thin briefly around rollover as banks and liquidity providers update their books and calculate the new trading day. Spreads may widen even when no major news is being released, making the minutes around the cut-off a poor time to open a short-term trade.
Read more: What are swap fees and how are they calculated in forex trading?
UK bank holidays do not close the global forex market, but they can remove a significant share of London participation. For traders using a UK clock, that usually means shallower order books, wider-than-normal spreads and a greater chance that the same order size slips further than it would on a normal London trading day.
The dates above follow the official England and Wales calendar except where a regional difference is stated. Bank-holiday dates change from year to year, and brokers may also alter dealing hours around Christmas and New Year, so both the government calendar and the broker’s holiday schedule should be checked before orders are left resting.
Read more: What Is Slippage in Trading? Causes & 6 Tips to Reduce It
Trader type |
Trading style |
Typical holding period |
Session to favour |
Why this session |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scalper | High-frequency, small targets | Seconds to minutes | London and New York overlap | Tightest spreads, deepest quotes |
| Day trader | Intraday directional | Minutes to hours | London open | Clear directional moves, high volume |
| Swing trader | Multi-day positional | Days to weeks | Any session | Entry timing less critical, rollover cost matters more |
| Range trader | Mean reversion at levels | Hours | Tokyo | Narrow ranges, defined levels |
| News trader | Event-driven | Minutes around releases | New York open | UK and US data releases cluster here |
| Part-time trader with a day job | Set-and-forget entries | Days | London close into New York | Fits a UK evening routine without chasing the open |
This mapping works because approaches that enter and exit quickly need liquidity and price movement online at the same time, while longer-holding approaches are usually better served by careful entry placement than by chasing the day’s noisiest period.
Read more: Best time to trade forex: When to enter the market during the day
The forex market normally opens at 22:00 on Sunday and closes at 22:00 on Friday in both GMT winter and BST summer, with continuous weekday trading in between. During the short UK–US clock-change gaps, the boundary can temporarily move to 21:00 UK time; see the table under Forex Market Hours in the UK.
The usual benchmark is 22:00 UK time on Sunday, temporarily moving to 21:00 during the UK–US clock gaps, but 21:00, 22:00 and 23:00 answers circulate because brokers use different product schedules and server-time displays. The reader should follow the market hours published by their own broker, as explained under What Happens at the Sunday Open and the Friday Close.
The normal Friday close is 22:00 GMT in winter and 22:00 BST in summer, with a temporary move to 21:00 during a UK–US clock mismatch. Liquidity has often thinned and spreads may already have widened in the final stretch, so the risk of a weekend gap should be considered before leaving a position open.
On a UK clock, the London session runs from 08:00 to 17:00 all year. Industry timetables differ because their conversion bases differ, not because London moves on a British trader’s clock, so use the session table above as the UK reference.
Forex trading operates 24 hours a day during the working week, but it is not open 24/7 because normal currency pricing stops over the weekend. Being able to trade is not the same as it being worth trading: overnight liquidity can be thin, spreads wider and execution more expensive.
London uses GMT in winter and BST in summer. Many platforms display broker server time, UTC or US Eastern time by default, so the platform clock should be set or converted to UK time before the trading day is planned.
Keep every session on a UK clock rather than repeatedly converting from another time zone. London remains fixed at 08:00–17:00 throughout the year, but Tokyo and New York move relative to it, the morning and afternoon overlaps behave differently, and the UK–US clock-change gaps require a fresh check. The Sunday open and Friday close should always come from the broker’s own published schedule.
Set the platform display to UK time, match the main currency pair to the session in which its markets are active, and mark UK bank holidays and the late-Friday period as thin-liquidity conditions to approach carefully. If a short-term trade crosses rollover, include the overnight financing charge in its cost before deciding whether the position is still worth holding.
The practical next step is to confirm the actual Sunday open and Friday close with the broker, then copy the session table from this guide and complete it as a personal UK-time timetable for the trading account being used.
Lee W. is a seasoned professional trader with over 10 years of experience. Passionate about sharing valuable expertise and unique market insights, Lee W. now serves as an external and independent market analyst for RADEX MARKETS.
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