Forex Trading Sessions: Times, Overlaps and How to Trade Them

The four forex sessions and when they run

Forex trading runs in four sessions: Sydney (21:00 UTC), Tokyo (23:00 UTC), London (08:00 UTC) and New York (13:00 UTC). They overlap around the clock, so you can trade 24 hours Monday to Friday. Tighter spreads during overlaps cut your cost per trade. The market rolls from one financial centre to the next without a central exchange closing bell. Match your strategy to the session's liquidity profile and you'll see the difference in your fills.

Choosing where to trade matters as much as the strategy; see the best forex brokers and their conditions.

Session overlaps and peak trading hours

London-New York overlap

The London-New York window (13:00-17:00 UTC) stacks the two biggest currency markets into four hours. EUR/USD spreads tighten to 1.0-1.2 pips here, versus 2.0-3.0 pips in Sydney. A pip, the smallest standard price move in a currency pair (0.0001 on EUR/USD), directly hits your entry cost. Use a pip value calculator and you'll see how a 1-pip saving compounds over a month of trades.

Tokyo-London overlap

The Tokyo-London window (07:00-08:00 UTC) is the second-most active period. Volume picks up on JPY crosses as Asian desks close and European desks open. USD/JPY spreads tighten but stay wider than EUR/USD during the London-New York overlap.

How daylight saving time shifts session times

Daylight saving time changes in the US and UK fall on different dates, which temporarily shifts overlap windows by one hour.

• When only the US observes daylight saving (mid-March), the London-New York overlap moves one hour earlier in UTC terms.
• When only the UK observes it (late October), the overlap moves one hour later.
• Sydney and Tokyo do not observe daylight saving in the same pattern, so during transition weeks you may see three separate UTC schedules in force across the four sessions.

Liquidity and spreads across sessions

London and New York quote spreads of 1.0-1.5 pips on EUR/USD; Sydney quotes 2.0-3.0 pips on the same pair. Trade EUR/USD during the Sydney session at a 2.5-pip spread versus the London-New York overlap at 1.2 pips, and a 10,000-unit position costs you around £1.30 extra per trade in Sydney.

Over 20 trades a month, that is roughly £26 in avoidable spread cost, and the gap grows with position size. Managing this alongside stop loss and slippage is where session choice earns its keep.

FCA Handbook (COBS 22.5): UK retail clients face leverage caps of 30:1 on major currency pairs and 20:1 on indices; tighter spreads during the London-New York overlap (13:00-17:00 UTC) reduce your effective cost per trade, making this window efficient for UK retail traders. See FCA leverage rules for UK retail.

24-hour forex trading and weekend closures

Forex sessions run 24 hours a day, five days a week: from Sunday 21:00 UTC (Sydney open) to Friday 22:00 UTC (New York close). The market shuts fully on Saturdays, Sundays and major public holidays such as Christmas Day and New Year's Day, when interbank desks are closed.

Economic releases cluster inside sessions: US non-farm payrolls print at 13:30 UTC on the first Friday of each month, inside the London-New York overlap, and UK CPI prints at 07:00 UTC, inside the Tokyo-London overlap. Align your foreign exchange trading hours with types of trading explained by session and timeframe and you've locked in a core part of session-aware trading.