Forex trading session times in South Africa (SAST)

South Africa is the closest of these zones to Europe, so London opens mid-morning. Session times in SAST, the afternoon overlap and the Sunday night open.

Forex session times in South Africa (SAST)

South Africa Standard Time is UTC+2 and South Africa does not use daylight saving, so the clock stays put while the forex sessions move around it. Of the four zones covered on this site, South Africa is the closest to Europe, which is why the London session lands in the middle of a normal working day instead of in the evening. The tables apply the working-day convention for a session (08:00 to 17:00 local time in Sydney, London and New York, 09:00 to 18:00 in Tokyo). For a specific date use the session times converter.

Northern summer (UK on BST, US on EDT, Sydney on winter time)

Northern winter (UK on GMT, US on EST, Sydney on summer time)

The week opens on Sunday night in summer

Because South Africa is only two hours ahead of UTC, the market reopens on Sunday 23:00 in northern summer and on Monday 00:00 in northern winter, based on the usual Sunday 17:00 New York open. That is unusual among the four zones: in summer the new week begins on your Sunday evening, not on Monday. The week closes on Friday 23:00 in summer and on Saturday 00:00 in winter, which is late Friday night. A trader who closes everything “before the weekend” therefore has until close to midnight on Friday, and the Sunday evening open is a time to check for a gap.

Sessions across a South African day

London runs 09:00 to 18:00 in northern summer and 10:00 to 19:00 in winter: a normal working day. New York opens at 14:00 or 15:00 and finishes at 23:00 or 00:00. The London and New York overlap, the busiest window, is 14:00 to 18:00 in summer and 15:00 to 19:00 in winter, an afternoon window that can be traded before the evening begins.

Tokyo’s session runs 02:00 to 11:00, which is the middle of the night to late morning, and Sydney starts around midnight. If you trade at night you are in the quiet part of the day for most pairs. The overlap between Tokyo and London is 09:00 to 11:00 in summer and 10:00 to 11:00 in winter, mid to late morning.

Trading the overlap on a working day (hypothetical)

Suppose you have a daytime job that finishes at 17:00. In northern summer the London and New York overlap ends at 18:00, so you would catch only the last hour. In northern winter it ends at 19:00, so you catch two hours. The same job and the same clock produce a different routine in different months, purely because London and New York move their clocks. A journal that tags trades by session shows whether the shorter summer window changes your results, but only if your tags are tied to the sessions and not to a fixed clock time.

That is a good reason to record the session on each trade, not only the hour. Two trades closed at 16:30 on your clock are in different sessions in July and in January. The gold trading sessions journal explains a tagging method, and the best-time guide explains how to avoid reading too much into a small sample.

Broker server time against SAST

Many MT5 brokers run their servers at UTC+2 in winter and UTC+3 in summer, which is a common pattern and not a rule. A broker on UTC+2 is the same as South African time, so server and local clocks agree for part of the year. A broker on UTC+3 is an hour ahead of you. Measure your own broker in Market Watch and write down the offset, as MT5 server time explained shows. AI Trading Journal records every trade on the broker’s clock, so its calendar and Excel charts match the History tab, and you convert to SAST with one added column.

Gold in South African time

Gold’s usual daily break, near 17:00 New York time, falls at about 23:00 SAST in northern summer and 00:00 in northern winter. See gold trading hours for the weekly open and the weekend gap.

Pitfalls

• Assuming Sunday night is closed. In northern summer the week reopens at 23:00 on Sunday in South Africa.
• Using a fixed hour in the journal. The same clock time is a different session in summer and winter.
• Confusing broker time with local time. They agree for only part of the year, depending on your broker.
• Trusting a table for another country. A UAE or India table is two or more hours out.

Honest limits

• A session is a convention, and activity does not begin or end on the hour.
• Your broker’s hours for a symbol may differ from the market pattern. Check the specification in MetaTrader 5.
• South Africa has no daylight saving today. If that changes, these offsets change too.
• This page is general information, not trading advice.

Related: UAE, Pakistan and India.

Trading indices or yen pairs from South Africa? See US30, NAS100 and GER30 hours in South Africa and the best time to trade USD/JPY in South Africa.

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