Forex session times converter: your local time, with daylight saving

Choose your time zone and a date to see when each forex session opens and closes where you are, how the overlaps fall and when the week starts. No sign-up.

Pick your time zone and a date. The converter shows when the four forex sessions, Sydney, Tokyo, London and New York, open and close where you are, the two overlaps that traders watch most, and when the trading week opens and closes. It reads your zone from your browser and works out daylight saving for the date you choose, so a date in March and a date in November give different answers where the clocks change.

How the converter defines a session

There is no official forex session. The market is a network of banks and brokers, and it never has one opening bell. The usual convention, and the one used here, is to take the ordinary working day of each financial centre, 08:00 to 17:00 local time in Sydney, London and New York and 09:00 to 18:00 in Tokyo, and treat that as the session. Because each centre moves its own clock for daylight saving, the sessions drift against each other during the year, which is exactly what a fixed table of UTC hours gets wrong.

SessionLocal working day usedIn UTC, northern summerIn UTC, northern winter
Sydney08:00 to 17:00 Sydney22:00 to 07:0021:00 to 06:00
Tokyo09:00 to 18:00 Tokyo00:00 to 09:0000:00 to 09:00
London08:00 to 17:00 London07:00 to 16:0008:00 to 17:00
New York08:00 to 17:00 New York12:00 to 21:0013:00 to 22:00

Some websites draw the lines a little differently, for example by using exchange hours, and their tables can be an hour away from this one. Neither is wrong, because the sessions are a convention. What matters is that you pick one and use it consistently when you look at your own results.

Why the overlaps matter

Two overlaps get most of the attention. When London and New York are both at their desks, which is four hours a day, many pairs and gold are usually at their busiest. When Tokyo and London overlap, which is one or two hours depending on the season, there is a shorter burst of European and Asian activity. Overlaps are a description of who is awake, not a promise of good trades. A busy market can mean tighter spreads, and it can also mean faster, larger moves against you.

The weeks when the overlap moves

The United States, the United Kingdom and Australia do not change their clocks on the same dates, so for a few weeks a year the pattern is not the one in the summer or winter table. Roughly: the US moves its clocks forward on the second Sunday of March and back on the first Sunday of November, the UK on the last Sundays of March and October, and Australia, in the southern hemisphere, moves forward on the first Sunday of October and back on the first Sunday of April. In the weeks between those dates the London and New York overlap can be an hour shorter or longer than usual in your local time. Use the date box to look at a specific week.

What this has to do with a trading journal

A converter tells you when the market is busy. A journal tells you when you make money. MetaTrader 5 stamps every trade with the broker’s server time, so to compare your results with the sessions above you need to know the offset between your broker’s clock and UTC, as explained in MT5 server time. AI Trading Journal keeps each trade’s open and close time on the broker’s clock, the same as your History tab, and its Excel report charts net P&L by close hour and by weekday. Put the two together and you can mark the session windows on that chart and see where your results actually sit. The best-time guide shows how, and the gold trading sessions journal shows a tagging method.

Session times for four common zones

If you only want a table, these pages are written for the zones that search for this most: UAE, Pakistan, India and South Africa. For gold specifically, see gold trading hours.

How to use the result

  1. Find your window. Look at which sessions fall inside the hours you can actually trade, and ignore the rest.
  2. Check the date. Look at the week you plan to trade, especially in March, April, October and November.
  3. Plan around the weekly open. The row for the week shows when the market reopens in your time, which is when a weekend gap shows up.
  4. Journal the session. Write the session on each trade, then compare after a few dozen trades.
  5. Do not trade a clock. A session is not a signal. Your edge is the setup, not the hour.

Limits of this converter

For the dates of central bank decisions and major US releases, see Market Watch, and for how to review trades around them see FOMC days and NFP days.

Frequently asked questions

What time does the forex market open in my time zone?
Pick your zone above. The week opens on Sunday at 17:00 New York time, which falls on Sunday or Monday in your local time depending on where you are.
What are the four forex sessions?
Sydney, Tokyo, London and New York. They are conventions based on the working day of each financial centre, not official opening hours.
When is the London and New York overlap?
Four hours a day, from the New York morning to the London afternoon. In UTC that is 12:00 to 16:00 in northern summer and 13:00 to 17:00 in northern winter.
Does the converter handle daylight saving?
Yes. It works out each centre’s clock for the date you choose, so changes in March, April, October and November are reflected.
Why does another website show different session times?
Sessions are a convention. Some sites use exchange hours or round the times, so their tables can differ by an hour from this one.

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