MT5 order expiration and time in force explained

How long a pending order may live, which clock decides it, how an expired order looks in the history and what to write down when it never fills.

A pending order that never fills is not a mistake, but one that fills three days later, when you have forgotten why you placed it, often is. MetaTrader 5 lets you decide how long a pending order may live. That setting is called the expiration, and the rule behind it is the order’s time in force. This page explains the choices you normally see, how they appear in the history, and how to keep your notes honest when an order disappears without trading.

What expiration and time in force mean

When you place a limit or stop order, the terminal asks how long the server should keep it. Typical choices are: until you cancel it, until the end of the current trading day, or until a date and time you pick. Some brokers offer only some of these, and the wording on the order window can differ between builds. Check your own terminal rather than trusting any list, including this one.

All of these times are read against the broker’s server clock, not your computer’s. If you are unsure how far apart the two are, read MT5 server time explained before you set an expiry for a specific hour.

How an expired order looks in the history

An order that expires without trading leaves no deal, because nothing was bought or sold. It appears among the orders in the account history with a state such as expired or cancelled, depending on the platform wording. This is why a list of closed positions never shows it. A journal that records one entry per closed position will not contain it either, and that is correct: no position existed.

The orders view and the deals view answer different questions. Orders tell you what you asked the server to do; deals tell you what actually happened. The relationship is covered in deal, order and position IDs explained, and the broader picture of pending orders in the records is in pending orders in the trade history.

Why expiry belongs in your trading plan

A pending order is a decision made in advance. The conditions that justified it, such as a level holding, a quiet session or an upcoming release, have a shelf life. An order left open past that point is a decision nobody is making any more. Setting an expiry forces you to state how long the idea is valid.

• Before a high-impact release, choose an expiry that ends before the release, so an old order cannot fill into a spike.
• On a Friday, decide whether any order may survive the weekend. A gap can fill it far from the level you chose; see weekend gaps and the Monday open.
• For a multi-day idea, write the review date in your notes at the time you place it.
• If the plan says the setup is only valid in one session, a day-only expiry removes the temptation to move it.

What to write down for each pending order

Pending orders that fill become ordinary positions, and those do reach your journal once they close. Pending orders that expire or get cancelled do not, so the lesson from them lives only in what you write yourself. A short note is enough: the level, the reason, the expiry chosen, and what happened. After a few weeks you can count how many ideas expired untouched and whether the ones that filled late did better or worse than the plan expected.

With AI Trading Journal, a filled order becomes an entry when the position closes, and you can add the setup, emotion, rating and notes to it. For orders that never filled, keep a small separate list, or add the note on the next related trade. The app does not record intended prices or orders that never traded, so this part is manual by nature.

A worked example (hypothetical)

A trader places a buy limit below the market at 10:00 server time with no expiry, because the plan says the level is strong. The market does not reach it that day. Two days later, in a different mood and with a different news backdrop, the order fills and the trade loses. The note for that trade says only that the stop was hit. Reviewing it, the trader realises the original reasoning had lapsed; the order should have carried a day-only expiry. The rule added to the plan: every pending order gets an expiry, and the expiry goes in the note.

The numbers here are made up to show the process; they are not a result or a recommendation.

Limits of this page

• Available expiry types and their names depend on the broker and the terminal build.
• The history wording for expired and cancelled orders varies; check your own terminal.
• This page is about record keeping, not about where to place orders.
• The journal app reads closed positions; it does not store expired or cancelled orders.

Frequently asked questions

Related guides

• A local trading journal for MT5
• P&L calendar for MT5
• Trade notes, ratings and screenshots
• Trading progress and goals
• Back up your journal and move it to a new PC
• An offline trading journal for Windows
• How to set monthly trading goals
• Import your whole MT5 history
• How to tag trades
• Trade screenshots for your journal
• All trading journal comparisons