Forex market hours in IST

Sydney, Tokyo, London, New York · converted to Indian Standard Time

The currency market runs 24 hours a day, five days a week, handing over from one financial centre to the next. There is no opening bell, so candles are anchored to 00:00 UTC — 05:30 IST — the same grid crypto uses.

Sessions in IST

Session	Local hours	IST (winter)	IST (summer)
Sydney	07:00 – 16:00 AEST	02:30 – 11:30	03:30 – 12:30
Tokyo	09:00 – 18:00 JST	05:30 – 14:30	05:30 – 14:30
London	08:00 – 17:00 UK	13:30 – 22:30	12:30 – 21:30
New York	08:00 – 17:00 ET	18:30 – 03:30	17:30 – 02:30

Daylight saving moves London and New York by an hour twice a year while India does not change, so these windows shift with the season. Japan observes no daylight saving, which is why Tokyo is fixed.

The overlaps worth trading

London – New York, roughly 17:30–21:30 IST. The busiest few hours of the day: both centres open, the deepest liquidity and the widest ranges on EUR/USD and GBP/USD.
Tokyo – London, around 12:30–14:30 IST. Thinner, but where Asian ranges often break.
The Indian window. NSE currency derivatives trade 09:00–17:00 IST, which overlaps Tokyo and the London open — USD/INR volume concentrates there.

Where candles close

On a UTC-anchored chart the daily forex candle closes at 05:30 IST, and 4-hour candles at 05:30, 09:30, 13:30, 17:30, 21:30 and 01:30. Some brokers run their charts on a server time of UTC+2 or UTC+3 so that the daily candle closes at the New York close instead; if yours does, set a custom alignment in Settings rather than using the default.

Open the 1-hour forex timer or 4-hour. For NSE currency futures, set a custom session of 09:00 – 17:00 in Settings.

Weekend

Forex closes around 02:30 IST on Saturday (New York close) and reopens about 02:30 IST on Monday with the Sydney session, give or take daylight saving. Crypto keeps trading through both.

Open the forex timer →