Forex Market Hours: Sydney, Tokyo, London and New York in Thai Time

Forex is open 24 hours from Monday to Friday, because when one financial centre closes, another city takes over. But those 24 hours are not all the same. Some hours are busy, with fast-moving prices and tight spreads. Others are thin, with quiet prices and wide spreads. Knowing these hours in Thai time (UTC+7) helps you pick the hours that suit your trading style and avoid paying higher costs for no reason.

The four main sessions in Thai time

Traders split the day into four sessions named after financial centres. This table takes each city’s business hours of about 08:00–17:00 (Tokyo 09:00–18:00) and converts them to Thai time.

Session	Without daylight saving	With daylight saving
Sydney	05:00–14:00	04:00–13:00 (roughly early October to early April)
Tokyo	07:00–16:00	Japan does not change its clocks
London	15:00–24:00	14:00–23:00 (late March to late October)
New York	20:00–05:00	19:00–04:00 (mid-March to early November)

Thailand does not use daylight saving time, so Thai time stays fixed while the other cities’ clocks move. That is why the numbers in the table shift by one hour twice a year.

When the trading week starts and ends

The week opens on Monday morning in Australia and closes at 17:00 New York time on Friday. So most brokers open for trading at around 4 to 5 a.m. on Monday Thai time and close at around 4 to 5 a.m. on Saturday Thai time, depending on US daylight saving time.

Prices don’t move over the weekend, but news can still happen. The Monday open can jump away from Friday’s close. This is called a Gap. Orders held over the weekend can be stopped out at a worse price than the Stop loss you set.

Session overlaps

When two sessions are open at once, traders from two regions are in the market together, so liquidity is higher than usual.

• London + New York: 20:00–24:00 Thai time in winter, 19:00–23:00 during daylight saving time. This is when many major pairs and gold move the most in the day, and US economic news is often released in this window
• Tokyo + London: about 14:00–16:00 Thai time, shorter and lighter

From morning to afternoon Thai time, when only Sydney and Tokyo are open, pairs with JPY, AUD and NZD tend to move more than pairs like EUR/USD, which usually trade in a narrower range than in the evening.

Busy doesn’t mean better. Fast-moving prices also hit your Stop loss faster. Pick the hours that fit your trading style, not the most exciting ones.

Example: converting US news times to Thai time

Many US economic releases come out at 08:30 New York time. Let’s convert it step by step. Thailand is at UTC+7.

During US daylight saving time, New York is at UTC−4:

• 08:30 + 4 hours = 12:30 UTC
• 12:30 + 7 hours = 19:30 Thai time

In winter, New York is at UTC−5:

• 08:30 + 5 hours = 13:30 UTC
• 13:30 + 7 hours = 20:30 Thai time

So the same release comes out at 19:30 or 20:30 depending on the time of year. If you remember just one Thai time all year, you will be an hour off for half the year.

Watch out when the clocks don’t change together

The US starts daylight saving time on the second Sunday of March and ends it on the first Sunday of November. The UK starts on the last Sunday of March and ends on the last Sunday of October.

As a result, each year there are about two to three weeks in March, and about one week from late October to early November, when the gap between London and New York is not the usual one. For example, in 2026 the UK ends daylight saving time on 25 October, but the US ends it on 1 November. During that week London opens at 15:00 while New York still opens at 19:00 Thai time, so the overlap stretches to 19:00–24:00. If you set your trading hours or an EA by the hour, check this period carefully.

The broker’s daily rollover

Every day, your broker has a “rollover” moment based on its own server time. Many brokers set it to 17:00 New York time, which is around 4 to 5 a.m. Thai time, but some set it differently. Check the server time of the broker you use.

Two things to know about this moment:

• Spreads usually widen, because liquidity is at its thinnest of the day. For some instruments, such as gold, many brokers also have a short trading break
• Swap is charged. Orders held through this moment are charged swap (overnight interest), which can be a credit or a cost depending on the pair and direction. Many brokers charge three times on Wednesday night to cover the weekend

In our backtest on real 2026 tick data, we opened one gold order a day with a Stop loss 5 dollars from the entry price, and compared two entry times: 06:30 and 07:00 Thai time. 07:00 matched the daily rollover on the test server.

Direction every day	Enter at 06:30	Enter at 07:00
Buy every day	−150 dollars	−962 dollars
Sell every day	+751 dollars	−2,364 dollars

Entering right at rollover was worse in both directions. If price direction were the cause, one side should improve when the other gets worse, but here both got worse. Our assumption is that the spread widening right after rollover hit the tight Stop loss. This is a one-year backtest result and does not predict future results, but it is a fair warning that your entry time affects your real costs.

If you use a tight Stop loss, don’t open or hold orders through the rollover by accident.

Common mistakes

• Remembering one Thai time all year, forgetting that London and New York shift their clocks twice a year
• Reading the chart time as Thai time. Charts in MT4/MT5 show the broker’s server time
• Leaving a Limit order open through rollover, then getting filled or stopped out while the spread is wide
• Holding over the weekend without thinking about Gaps. A Stop loss does not guarantee your exit price when the open jumps past it
• Trading thin hours with a method that needs price to move, such as waiting for a Breakout on EUR/USD in the Thai morning