When does the share market open and close in India?
The Indian equity market – both the NSE and the BSE – is open for normal trading from 9:15 AM to 3:30 PM IST, Monday to Friday. This is the continuous session in which you buy and sell shares at live, changing prices. Around it sit two shorter windows: a pre-open session from 9:00 to 9:15 AM that sets the opening price, and a post-close session from 3:40 to 4:00 PM.
The market is shut on Saturdays, Sundays and a published list of exchange holidays. Before you plan a trade, it is worth checking our NSE, BSE & MCX holiday list and live "is the market open" status – it tells you in one glance whether today is a trading day.
| Session | Timing (IST) | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-open | 9:00 AM – 9:15 AM | Orders collected, opening price discovered |
| Normal / continuous | 9:15 AM – 3:30 PM | Live buying and selling at market prices |
| Closing price calculation | 3:00 PM – 3:30 PM | Weighted-average price fixes the close |
| Post-close | 3:40 PM – 4:00 PM | Orders placed at the closing price |
These hours apply to the cash (delivery and intraday) equity segment. Currency, commodity (MCX) and derivatives segments run on different schedules, which we cover further down.
The pre-open session (9:00 AM – 9:15 AM)
The 15-minute pre-open session exists to discover a single fair opening price for each stock, so the market does not lurch wildly in the first seconds of trading. It is split into three parts:
- Order collection (9:00 – 9:08 AM): you can place, modify or cancel limit and market orders. Nothing is executed yet – the exchange is only gathering demand and supply.
- Order matching & price discovery (≈9:08 – 9:12 AM): order entry closes and the system calculates the equilibrium opening price for each security, then confirms the trades that match at that price.
- Buffer period (≈9:12 – 9:15 AM): a short transition that lets the system move smoothly from the pre-open phase into normal continuous trading at 9:15 AM.
The opening price set here becomes the first traded price of the day. Note that the exact internal sub-timings can be adjusted by the exchange, but the overall pre-open window has consistently run 9:00–9:15 AM. The headline indices you will see open at 9:15 AM – read more about how they are built in our explainers on what the Nifty 50 is and what the Sensex is.
Normal trading: 9:15 AM to 3:30 PM
This 6-hour-and-15-minute window is the heart of the trading day. Prices move continuously as buy and sell orders match in real time, and this is the only session in which you can react to intraday news and place the full range of order types – limit, market, stop-loss and so on.
Both the NSE and BSE keep identical normal-session hours, so a stock listed on both exchanges trades on the same clock. The closing price you see for a stock is not simply the last trade at 3:30 PM – it is a volume-weighted average price (VWAP) of trades in the last half hour (roughly 3:00–3:30 PM), which prevents a single late trade from distorting the official close.
One change to be aware of: from 3 August 2026, the exchange introduces a Closing Auction Session (about 3:15–3:35 PM) for eligible cash-market securities, and equity derivatives (F&O) extend their close to 3:40 PM to align with it. Crucially, the normal cash-equity session itself stays 9:15 AM to 3:30 PM – that core window is unchanged.
If you are buying and selling individual names, our Nifty 50 stocks list is a handy reference for the index's constituents.
Closing and post-close session (3:40 PM – 4:00 PM)
After normal trading ends at 3:30 PM, there is a brief gap, and then the post-close session runs from 3:40 PM to 4:00 PM. This window works very differently from normal trading.
- You can place buy or sell orders in the equity delivery segment, but only market orders – you cannot set your own price.
- Every order in this session executes at the closing price (the 3:30 PM VWAP-based close), not at a live price.
- It is mainly useful for investors who simply want to enter or exit at the official closing price without watching the screen all day.
If there is no quantity available at the closing price, your post-close order may not be filled. Because prices here are fixed, this session is about convenience, not price improvement – active traders almost always prefer the normal 9:15–3:30 window.
Which days the market is open
The cash equity market trades Monday to Friday. It is closed on Saturdays and Sundays, and on every exchange holiday published for the year (festivals and a few national holidays). Settlement holidays can also affect when trades settle even when trading itself is open.
Rather than memorising the calendar, check our stock market holidays page – it lists the full NSE, BSE and MCX holiday schedule and shows a live status of whether the market is currently open, closed for the day, or on a weekend.
A useful early signal sits outside Indian hours: GIFT Nifty, which trades for far longer at GIFT City, is widely watched as a pointer to how the Nifty may open before 9:15 AM.
Currency and commodity (MCX) trading hours
Not every market follows the 9:15–3:30 equity clock. The currency derivatives segment on NSE/BSE typically trades from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, while commodity trading on the MCX runs much later into the night to overlap with global markets.
| Segment | Typical hours (IST) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Equity cash (NSE/BSE) | 9:15 AM – 3:30 PM | Mon–Fri, plus pre-open and post-close windows |
| Currency derivatives | 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM | Cross-currency pairs may differ slightly |
| MCX non-agri (gold, silver, crude, etc.) | 9:00 AM – 11:30 PM | Closes ~11:30 PM in US daylight-saving time (Mar–Nov); ~11:55 PM in US winter |
| MCX agri commodities | 9:00 AM – ~5:00 PM | Internationally linked agri (e.g. cotton) can run later |
The reason commodities like gold and crude oil trade until late night is that their prices track international exchanges; the extended evening session lets Indian participants react to overseas moves. The exact MCX evening cut-off shifts by about 25 minutes when the US switches its clocks: it closes earlier, around 11:30 PM, during US daylight-saving time (mid-March to early November), and around 11:55 PM during US winter – which is why you will see both times quoted.
Muhurat trading and after-market orders (AMO)
Once a year, on Diwali, the exchanges hold a special one-hour Muhurat trading session even though the day is otherwise a holiday. It marks the start of the Hindu accounting year (Samvat) and is considered auspicious for opening fresh positions. The exact slot – historically an evening session, and in recent years an afternoon one – is announced by NSE and BSE each year, so always confirm the date and time on our holidays page rather than assuming it is the same as last year.
Separately, if you want to place an order when the market is shut, brokers offer After-Market Orders (AMO). You can enter an AMO outside trading hours and the broker queues it to be sent to the exchange at the next session's open. AMOs do not execute overnight – they simply line up your order so you do not have to be at your screen at 9:15 AM.
There are also block deal windows – short windows (a morning one just before the open (around 8:45–9:00 AM) and an afternoon one (around 2:05–2:20 PM)) in which large, negotiated trades of a minimum value go through at agreed prices, separate from the regular order book. These are aimed at institutions rather than retail investors.
Finally, remember that timings are about when to act, not what to buy. If you would rather not track the clock at all, a disciplined monthly plan via index funds is one route – you can model the outcome with our SIP calculator.