Is the stock market open today?

The short answer

Session windows: NSE circulars NSE/CMTR/73362, NSE/FAOP/75472, NSE/CMTR/76170, last read 2026-09-04. Trading days: the NSE Capital Market calendar (NSE/CMTR/71775 (12 Dec 2025)), last read 2026-09-07. Both are set out in full at the foot of this page.

The exchange runs other windows around it — Pre-open call auction 9:00 am to 9:10 am (Equity cash + equity derivatives (F&O)), Closing auction (CAS) 3:15 pm to 3:35 pm (Equity cash — stocks that have derivatives), Continuous trading continues 3:15 pm to 3:30 pm (Equity cash — stocks with no derivatives), Continuous trading continues 3:15 pm to 3:40 pm (Equity derivatives (F&O) — index and stock contracts), Post-close session 3:50 pm to 4:00 pm (Equity cash). None of them is the market being open. The timetable above shows each one with what happens in it.

The trading day changed on 3 August 2026

If you learned NSE's timetable before August 2026, part of what you learned is out of date. The end of the trading day has been rebuilt around a Closing Auction Session, usually written CAS. That is a short auction that decides the closing price of a share. The closing price no longer falls out of ordinary trading. NSE circular NSE/FAOP/75472 (30 Jul 2026) is blunt about the date: “the changes in trading modalities in the Equity Derivatives segment due to introduction of CAS in equity segment, shall be effective in LIVE from August 03, 2026.”

What a closing auction actually is

In ordinary continuous trading your order is matched against whatever is on the other side the moment it arrives. A share can therefore print a different price every second. An auction stops doing that. For a set window the exchange collects orders without matching them. At the end it works out a single equilibrium price — one price at which the orders on both sides are matched together. Everybody who trades in that auction trades at the same price.

For a share that CAS covers, that auction price is the day's closing price (NSE/CMTR/73362, clause 5.1.1). It is not a number carried over from continuous trading. Only when no equilibrium price can be struck does the exchange fall back to a continuous-trading figure: the volume-weighted average price of the share's trades between 3:00 and 3:15 pm. That same average is the reference price the auction starts from, and its ±3% price band is drawn around it (clauses 2.1, 3.1.1 and 5.1.1). While the auction runs the exchange keeps publishing what it can see. That is the indicative equilibrium price, the quantity tradable at it, and how far the buy and sell sides are out of balance (clause 6).

Two mechanical details follow from it being an auction. Only limit orders and market orders count towards the equilibrium price. An order also has to show its full quantity, rather than a disclosed part of it (clauses 4.1 and 4.2).

Cash and F&O no longer stop at the same minute

NSE/CMTR/73362 redefines the last half hour of the cash market's continuous trading session as 2:45 pm to 3:15 pm (clause 3.2.1.1). It describes the derivatives segment's trading market hours as running “from 9:00 a.m. to 3:40 p.m. including CAS” (clause 3.2.2.1). In the stretch between those two, the cash market is in its auction while stock futures keep trading. Those futures sit under a price band pinned to ±3% of a reference price, taken from each contract's own 3:00–3:15 pm volume-weighted average (clauses 2.3 and 3.2.1.1).

Which of those this page's verdict follows. The yes/no at the top is decided by one window and says so: Continuous trading — every segment, 9:15 am to 3:15 pm IST (Equity cash + equity derivatives (F&O)). When that window ends the answer turns to closed, even if another segment or an auction is still running. Those appear in the timetable above with their own timing and their own segment. The row that is live at the moment you look is marked there.

It does not apply to every share yet

CAS is being introduced in stages, and the first stage is narrow. The circular's own words: “CAS shall be made applicable in a phased manner. Initially, the closing price of stocks in the cash segment on which derivative contracts are available shall be determined based on CAS” (NSE/CMTR/73362, clause 1.1). A share with no derivative contracts on it still gets its closing price the earlier way (clause 5.1.2). An index can hold both kinds at once. While the auction is on, the exchange therefore publishes two index values: the actual index, and an indicative closing index value (clause 6.5).

Already scheduled: 7 September 2026

The most recent update is NSE/CMTR/76170 (3 Sep 2026). It extends the same reference-price and price-band rules to index futures, on top of stock futures, with effect from 7 September 2026. That changes how those contracts are banded in the last stretch of the day. It is not a change to the hours in the timetable above.

How the answer is determined

There are only four questions, asked in order. The first three decide whether the exchange trades at all today. The fourth decides which part of the day you are in.

1. Has the exchange published a special session for this exact date? If it has, that circular's own window wins over every rule below. That includes the weekend rule, which is why a Sunday can be a trading day.
2. Has it scheduled a session whose hours are not published yet? Muhurat trading is the recurring case. The date is on the annual circular, and the timing follows in a separate one. On such a date this page says a session is expected, rather than inventing an hour or declaring the market shut.
3. Is it a Saturday, a Sunday, or a date on the NSE trading-holiday list? Then the equity and F&O segments are shut all day. The holiday list is published in advance by circular. It does not follow a rule you can derive, which is why the date has to be looked up.
4. Which session window does the clock fall in? Continuous trading — every segment runs 9:15 am to 3:15 pm IST. It is the one window that turns the answer green. Before and after it the market is closed for the purposes of this page, even on a trading day. The windows either side belong to another segment or to an auction.

Worked example 1 — a holiday

Take Fri, 26 Jun, 2026. No special-session circular names that date, so question 1 passes. No session with unpublished timings is scheduled on it, so question 2 passes. Question 3 finds it on the trading-holiday list as Muharram (NSE/CMTR/71775 (12 Dec 2025)). The market is closed for the whole day, so question 4 — which session window the clock is in — never gets asked. The next trading session is Mon, 29 Jun, 2026 at 9:15 am IST . The weekend in between is stepped over, so the calendar skips three consecutive non-trading days in a row.

Worked example 2 — an open day, 5 minutes after the deciding window ends

Take Mon, 24 Aug, 2026 at 3:20 pm IST. It is not a weekend and it is not on the holiday list, so it is a normal trading day — but Continuous trading — every segment (9:15 am to 3:15 pm IST) ended 5 minutes earlier. At that minute, the market is Open — but the cash market is in its closing auction — Continuous trading in the equity cash segment ended at 3:15 pm IST for stocks that have derivatives, and those stocks are now in the closing auction, which matches by 3:35 pm. Cash stocks with no derivatives are still trading continuously until 3:30 pm. Equity derivatives (F&O) keep trading continuously until 3:40 pm IST.

That paragraph is not written out by hand. The same engine answers the live question at the top of this page. The verdict and the sentence after it are what it returns for 2026-08-24 15:20 IST. If the exchange moves a window, this example moves with it.

“Closed today” is more than one question

Trading, clearing, settlement and a withdrawal to a bank are separate processes. Each follows its own documents and calendar. A trading closure does not decide whether settlement or a withdrawal can proceed. The table identifies where to check each process.

A related trap sits inside the first row. A broker can accept an instruction outside exchange hours and hold it for the next session. An accepted instruction is not a trade. The execution record, not the order screen, is what says whether anything happened. Why each of these is a different statement is worked through in what “the market is closed today” actually means.

Edge cases that trip people up

The pre-open session is not the market being open

Between 09:00 and 09:10 IST the exchange collects orders and works out the opening price. Order books move and screens light up. Nothing has traded continuously yet. This page counts that window as closed and labels it, rather than showing a green light early.

15:15 is a hard edge, not a rounding

One minute before it the market is open. At 15:15:00 it is not. What follows is a different thing under a different rule: an auction, or another segment's window. It is not an extension of normal trading. That is the distinction the change of 3 August 2026 made sharper. The cash market's continuous session and the derivatives segment now end at different minutes.

Weekends are not always closed

The exchange occasionally runs a live weekend session. The calendar this page reads contains one. It is a special live session held on Sunday 1 February 2026 under its own circular. On such a date the status above follows that circular's own timings, rather than the weekend rule.

Muhurat trading gets its own timetable

The short Diwali session is timed by its own circular each year, close to the date. The annual calendar only names the day — Sunday Sun, 8 Nov, 2026, Diwali Laxmi Pujan (NSE/CMTR/71775 (12 Dec 2025)). The 2026 timings are in NSE/CMTR/76941. On that day the status above follows that circular's own windows. Each stage is explained in our Muhurat Trading 2026 timetable and beginner guide.

Until a timing circular exists, this page does two things and refuses a third. It says a session is expected. It names the circular you have to watch for the hours. It does not print an opening time it cannot source. It also does not record the date as a full closure when the exchange has said it will trade. Once the timing circular is added, the same date answers with that circular's own windows. The special Sunday session described just above works the same way.

A trading holiday and a settlement holiday are different things

The exchange can be open while the clearing corporation is not. A settlement can also roll to a later day for reasons that never close the market. That is a separate question, and the settlement calculator answers it.

Other segments keep their own hours

This page covers the NSE equity cash and equity-derivative segments only. Currency and commodity segments run longer or different sessions. Unscheduled halts are announced live by the exchange and cannot appear in a published calendar.

Where this appears in the NISM syllabus

Trading hours, the pre-open call auction and the exchange holiday calendar are "trading mechanism" topics rather than product knowledge. They turn up early in NISM's securities-market certification workbooks — for example the equity-derivatives and research-analyst series. Those set out how a trading session is structured before going near instruments. The examinable facts are the ones on this page. They are the hours of each session window in the timetable above, that a call auction precedes and now also ends the cash-market day, and that trading holidays are published in advance by the exchange rather than following any date rule.

Workbooks lag circulars. NISM updates its workbooks and syllabus outlines periodically. An edition printed before the Closing Auction Session began on 3 August 2026 still describes the older trading day. Match the current unit and chapter to the official workbook edition for your exam sitting on the NISM website.

Understand the idea

Read the short lesson behind this tool.

• How do market hours and holidays work?