How to use the forex market hours clock
Pick a time zone at the top of the tool: your own, UTC, New York, London, Tokyo or Sydney. The clock then shows which sessions are open now, a countdown to the next open or close, and a 24-hour timeline with the London–New York overlap highlighted.
How to read the clock
Each of the four main sessions appears as a bar on the timeline. Open sessions are marked as live with the time they have left; closed sessions show how long until they open. The marker on the timeline is the current time in the zone you selected.
The tool models each session in its own city's local time: about 8am to 5pm in Sydney, London and New York, and about 9am to 6pm in Tokyo. These are conventional windows, not official opening bells. Forex is traded over the counter, so prices keep moving between sessions, just with less activity. For the background on how the trading week is structured, see our guide to forex market hours and sessions.
Which pairs move in which session
Activity in a currency tends to pick up when its home financial centre is open, because that is when local banks, companies and funds are trading and when local economic data is released.
- Sydney: the Australian and New Zealand dollars, such as AUD/USD and NZD/USD.
- Tokyo: yen pairs, such as USD/JPY, EUR/JPY and AUD/JPY.
- London: the euro and the pound, such as EUR/USD, GBP/USD and EUR/GBP.
- New York: US dollar pairs and the Canadian dollar, such as USD/CAD.
This is a tendency, not a rule. A surprise in US data can move yen pairs, and major news can move any pair at any hour. If pair notation is still new to you, start with how currency pairs work.
Why the London–New York overlap matters
The overlap runs roughly from 8am to noon New York time, when both centres are open at once. It is usually the most liquid window of the day. More buyers and sellers generally means tighter spreads and fills closer to the price you see. That matters most for short-term styles such as scalping, where trading costs take a large share of each trade.
The quietest stretch is usually after New York closes and before Tokyo is fully active. Spreads often widen then, so a trade that looks cheap during the overlap can cost noticeably more late in the evening. Read more on what the spread is and why it changes.
Worked example: finding the overlap in your time zone
Suppose you trade from London in January. New York is on Eastern Standard Time (UTC−5) and London is on GMT (UTC+0), a five-hour gap. The overlap of 8am to noon in New York is therefore 1pm to 5pm in London, which lines up with the end of the London session at about 5pm.
In UTC, the same overlap is 13:00 to 17:00 in winter. During US daylight saving time New York moves to UTC−4, so the overlap becomes 12:00 to 16:00 UTC. The clock does this conversion for you, whichever zone you choose.
Daylight saving time
Session times shift for many traders because daylight saving rules differ by country. The UK and the US move their clocks in March and again in October or November, but not on the same dates, so for a short period in spring and again in autumn the London–New York gap is four hours instead of five. Australia changes in the opposite direction because its seasons are reversed, and Japan does not use daylight saving at all. Because the tool tracks each city's local time, the timeline updates automatically when clocks change.
The weekend gap
The forex week opens around 5pm New York time on Sunday, as the Asia-Pacific week begins, and closes around 5pm New York time on Friday. News keeps happening while the market is shut, so Monday's first prices can open away from Friday's close. This is called a gap. A stop loss does not guarantee its exact level if price opens beyond it; it is usually filled at the first available price. Holding positions over the weekend means accepting that risk. Our page on stop loss and take profit orders explains how these orders are filled.
Holidays and thin markets
The clock does not show bank holidays. When a major centre is closed for a holiday, its session can be much quieter than usual, with wider spreads and less reliable price action, even though the timeline still shows it as open. Check a holiday calendar before trading around Christmas, New Year and national holidays in the countries whose currencies you trade.
Using session times in a trading plan
Many traders choose one or two sessions that fit their schedule and their pairs, and ignore the rest. A trader in Asia might focus on yen and Australian dollar pairs, while a trader in Europe might concentrate on the London open and the overlap. If you are building a routine from scratch, our forex trading guide for beginners covers the basics.
Trading risk
Trading forex carries a high risk of loss, and leveraged trading can lose money quickly. Session times describe typical activity, not guaranteed movement or costs. This page is for education only and is not financial advice. Please read our risk disclaimer.