Forex market hours in Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Peru and Argentina

Forex has no single exchange. Currencies trade between banks and other participants in financial centres around the world, so as one centre closes, another is already open. The result is a market that runs 24 hours a day from Monday to Friday and closes over the weekend.

The day is usually divided into four trading sessions, named after the centres that lead them: Sydney, Tokyo, London and New York. The week begins when Sydney opens on Monday morning, which is still Sunday afternoon or evening in Latin America, and ends when New York closes on Friday afternoon.

Session times are conventions, not official opening hours: activity builds up and fades gradually. This guide uses a common definition. Sydney and Tokyo run from about 09:00 to 18:00 local time, and London and New York from about 08:00 to 17:00 local time. All times are approximate and use the 24-hour clock.

Tokyo keeps the same clock all year. Sydney, London and New York move their clocks by an hour for daylight saving time, so their UTC times differ between July and January.

The tables below convert each session to local time in five cities. "Around July" is the northern summer and "around January" the northern winter. When a session crosses midnight, the closing time is on the next day.

Mexico (Mexico City and central Mexico time, UTC−6)

Colombia and Peru (Bogotá and Lima time, UTC−5)

Chile (Santiago time, UTC−4 around July, UTC−3 around January)

Argentina (Buenos Aires time, UTC−3)

Session times in Latin America move during the year even where local clocks never change, because the financial centres change theirs:

• United States (New York): clocks go forward one hour from the second Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November.
• United Kingdom (London): one hour forward from the last Sunday in March to the last Sunday in October.
• Australia (Sydney): one hour forward from the first Sunday in October to the first Sunday in April, the southern summer.
• Japan (Tokyo): no daylight saving time.

On the Latin American side, Mexico City stays on UTC−6 all year, since Mexico ended daylight saving time in most of the country in 2022. Mexico has several time zones, and some northern border areas still follow the US daylight saving dates, so the Mexico table applies to Mexico City and central Mexico. Colombia and Peru stay on UTC−5 and Argentina on UTC−3. Santiago and most of continental Chile change: they use UTC−4 in the southern winter and UTC−3 in the southern summer, usually from early September to early April. The exact dates are set by the Chilean government and can vary from year to year.

Because these changes happen on different dates, the weeks from the second week of March to early April and from early September to early November can differ from both tables by an hour. Check the current offsets for your city during those weeks.

When two sessions are open at once, more participants are active. The overlap between London and New York is usually the busiest part of the day for major pairs such as EUR/USD and GBP/USD, and liquidity is typically higher. Higher liquidity often comes with tighter spreads, but it does not make price moves smaller or more predictable.

In the quieter hours, after New York closes and before Tokyo is fully active, fewer participants trade. Spreads can widen and prices can jump more easily. Volatility can also rise at any hour when important economic data or central bank decisions are released.

Forex closes from Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon or evening in Latin America. News can still happen over the weekend, so the first price on Monday can be different from Friday's last price. That jump is called a gap. Orders inside a gap, including a stop loss, are filled at the next available price, which can be worse than the level you set.

Public holidays in a major centre, such as Christmas or New Year, can also mean thinner trading and wider spreads, and some instruments may close early or not trade at all.

At NextTrade, forex markets are open 24 hours from Monday to Friday, closing over the weekend. Trading hours may vary depending on the instrument and its underlying exchange, so this guide does not list hours for indices, metals or energies. The exact schedule of each instrument is in its Symbol Specifications in the trading platform.

Crypto CFDs are the exception: they can be traded 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, including weekends. Crypto prices can move sharply at any time, including when you may not be watching your positions.