Home Market hours LSE
Is the LSE open?
The LSE trades 08:00 to 16:30 London time, which puts its open at the same moment as the London forex session and its close half an hour before. Because London observes British Summer Time, its hours in UTC shift twice a year while Johannesburg’s never do.
Reading your clock…
—
Forex sessions running alongside it
| Session | Status | Your time | Countdown |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sydney08:00 – 17:00 Sydney | — | — | — |
| Tokyo09:00 – 18:00 Tokyo | — | — | — |
| London08:00 – 17:00 London | — | — | — |
| New York08:00 – 17:00 New York | — | — | — |
| London – New York overlapthe busiest window of the day | — | — | — |
Exchanges
| Exchange | Status | Local | Countdown |
|---|---|---|---|
| JSE—Holiday data does not cover this date yet — treat the badge as hours only. | — | — | — |
| NYSE—Holiday data does not cover this date yet — treat the badge as hours only. | — | — | — |
| LSE—Holiday data does not cover this date yet — treat the badge as hours only. | — | — | — |
The clock needs JavaScript and runs entirely in this tab. Your timezone is read from the browser with the standard internationalisation API — nothing is sent anywhere.
The trading day, phase by phase
“Open” is not one state. An order placed into an opening auction does not behave like an order placed into continuous trading, and a badge that collapses the two is telling you something untrue. Here is what the LSE day actually looks like.
| Phase | Local | UTC, winter | UTC, summer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Opening auction Auction — orders collect, no continuous matching | 07:50 – 08:00 | 07:50 – 08:00 | 06:50 – 07:00 |
| Continuous trading Continuous trading | 08:00 – 16:30 | 08:00 – 16:30 | 07:00 – 15:30 |
| Closing auction Auction — orders collect, no continuous matching | 16:30 – 16:35 | 16:30 – 16:35 | 15:30 – 15:35 |
When the LSE is closed
16 full closures and 4 half days across 2026 and 2027. The half days are the ones worth knowing: nothing announces them, and a position left open into an early close sits in a market that has already gone home.
2026
| Date | Day | Holiday | Trading |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 January | Thursday | New Year’s Day | closed |
| 3 April | Friday | Good Friday | closed |
| 6 April | Monday | Easter Monday | closed |
| 4 May | Monday | Early May bank holiday | closed |
| 25 May | Monday | Spring bank holiday | closed |
| 31 August | Monday | Summer bank holiday | closed |
| 24 December | Thursday | Christmas Eve | closes 12:30 |
| 25 December | Friday | Christmas Day | closed |
| 28 December | Monday | Boxing Day substitute | closed |
| 31 December | Thursday | New Year’s Eve | closes 12:30 |
2027
| Date | Day | Holiday | Trading |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 January | Friday | New Year’s Day | closed |
| 26 March | Friday | Good Friday | closed |
| 29 March | Monday | Easter Monday | closed |
| 3 May | Monday | Early May bank holiday | closed |
| 31 May | Monday | Spring bank holiday | closed |
| 30 August | Monday | Summer bank holiday | closed |
| 24 December | Friday | Christmas Eve | closes 12:30 |
| 27 December | Monday | Christmas Day substitute | closed |
| 28 December | Tuesday | Boxing Day substitute | closed |
| 31 December | Friday | New Year’s Eve | closes 12:30 |
Exchange calendars are published a year or two ahead and are occasionally amended — for a national day of mourning, or a change to a substitution rule. This list is the published schedule, not a guarantee; the exchange's own calendar is the authority. Past 2027 the live badge says it no longer knows about holidays rather than implying a day is normal.
LSE hours in every major timezone
| Timezone | Northern winter | Northern summer |
|---|---|---|
| SAST South Africa | 10:00 – 18:30 | 09:00 – 17:30 |
| GMT Reference time | 08:00 – 16:30 | 07:00 – 15:30 |
| EST / EDT United States | 03:00 – 11:30 | 03:00 – 11:30 |
| IST India | 13:30 – 22:00 | 12:30 – 21:00 |
| GST United Arab Emirates | 12:00 – 20:30 | 11:00 – 19:30 |
| CET / CEST Europe | 09:00 – 17:30 | 09:00 – 17:30 |
| EET / EEST Europe | 10:00 – 18:30 | 10:00 – 18:30 |
| JST Japan | 17:00 – 01:30 | 16:00 – 00:30 |
| AEST / AEDT Australia | 19:00 – 03:30 | 17:00 – 01:30 |
| WAT West Africa | 09:00 – 17:30 | 08:00 – 16:30 |
| EAT East Africa | 11:00 – 19:30 | 10:00 – 18:30 |
| PST / PDT United States | 00:00 – 08:30 | 00:00 – 08:30 |
The other exchanges, and the forex sessions
Your index trades, grouped by the session they were taken in
If you trade index CFDs, the exchange calendar decides which of your hours were real. Your MT4 or MT5 statement records the entry time of every trade, and TapeSheet splits your win rate, expectancy and net P&L by session from it. Free, no signup, and the file never leaves your device.
Analyze my statementLive market hours clock ·Candle close countdown ·Session times in SAST ·Trading calculators