London session forex time

Trading moves between Sydney, Tokyo, London and New York, and that means your platform accepts currency trades at any hour on weekdays We take a close look at the London forex session time because a large share of currency trading comes from European banks in the UK, Germany as well as France.

You may see two London session times: 8am to 5pm UK time and 8am to 4pm GMT. Both periods cover the main UK banking day, though trading activity often slows during lunch between 12pm and 2pm.

During London hours, major currency pairs including EUR/USD, GBP/USD and EUR/GBP reach their greatest liquidity and narrowest spreads. Put simply, liquidity shows how easily you can buy or sell a currency without shifting its price. Your trading cost includes the spread, which is the small difference between buying and selling prices.

Our UK forex market hours guide shows how the whole week fits together. You can also test how spreads behave at different times with a forex demo account.

For 4 hours each afternoon, the world's 2 largest financial centres operate together. During winter, the overlap runs from 1pm to 5pm UK time. British Summer Time moves it to 2pm to 6pm. This period appears as either 1pm to 5pm GMT or 12pm to 4pm GMT if your schedule stays on Greenwich Mean Time.

Over 50% of worldwide currency trading volume takes place during this afternoon period. This window also accounts for 50% to 60% of the day's price movement. The US dollar appears in 80% to 85% of all currency trades, so dollar pairs become very active when North American banks open.

Major US economic reports usually come out between 1:30pm and 3pm GMT, and they can move EUR/USD by 50 to 100 pips in a few minutes. The pip is the standard measure for small changes in an exchange rate. When 1 session trades by itself, EUR/USD can move 40 pips, while the full overlap allows a movement of 80 to 120 pips.

You'll also notice extra activity when the US stock market opens in UK time at 2:30pm, as share trading on the New York Stock Exchange feeds into the US dollar.

Throughout the year, the local London session follows your wall clock from 8am to 5pm because these times match UK banking hours. The UK uses Greenwich Mean Time in winter and changes to British Summer Time in summer. During that period, our clocks are 1 hour ahead of Coordinated Universal Time.

UK clocks move ahead by 1 hour at 1am on March's final Sunday. The final Sunday of October has a clock change at 2am, and clocks go back 1 hour then.

Countries set their clock changes for different dates or make no seasonal change at all. Their sessions move 1 hour on your UK clock as the seasons alternate. Without summer time in Tokyo, UK trading hours last from 12am to 9am in winter and from 1am to 10am in summer. Opposite seasonal timing means Sydney's UK hours run 10pm to 7am during winter. During summer, the window moves to 11pm to 8am.

A comparison of CFDs and stocks shows that UK shares follow a much shorter timetable than currencies. On weekdays, the London Stock Exchange Main Market trades from 8:00 to 16:30. It closes fully for every bank holiday in England and Wales.

Early winding down at the stock exchange starts at 12:30 London time on both Christmas Eve, 24 December 2026 and New Year's Eve, 31 December 2026. It then stays closed for Christmas Day on 25 December 2026, for the Boxing Day substitute holiday on 28 December 2026 and for New Year's Day on 1 January 2027. Across most UK bank holidays, currency markets remain available at FCA regulated forex brokers. They close on weekdays only for Christmas Day and New Year's Day.

The exchange is building another weekday venue called London Stock Exchange 24. Its hours are 17:00 to 07:50, with a 30 minute break from 18:30 to 19:00. Client testing is planned for the end of 2026. The exchange traded products launch in 2027.