Forex Market Hours in Canadian Time Zones

When is the forex market open in Canada?

The global currency market runs 24 hours a day from Sunday 5 p.m. to Friday 5 p.m. Eastern Time — that's Sunday 2 p.m. to Friday 2 p.m. in Vancouver. It isn't one exchange but a network of banks and dealers, so "sessions" are really the business hours of the big financial centres.

The best times to trade from Canada

• 8 a.m.–noon ET (5–9 a.m. PT): London and New York overlap. Highest volume, tightest spreads, and most Canadian and U.S. economic data (released at 8:30 a.m. ET).
• 3 a.m.–8 a.m. ET: London morning — active for EUR, GBP and CHF pairs, but inconvenient for most Canadians.
• 7 p.m.–3 a.m. ET: Tokyo session — JPY and AUD/NZD pairs; CAD pairs are quiet.
• 5 p.m. ET: daily rollover. Spreads widen sharply for a few minutes; avoid entering trades then.

Canada-specific timing

• Labour Force Survey (jobs report): usually the first Friday of the month at 8:30 a.m. ET — often the same morning as U.S. non-farm payrolls.
• CPI: mid-month, 8:30 a.m. ET.
• Bank of Canada rate decisions: eight per year at 9:45 a.m. ET. See our BoC decision schedule.
• Canadian holidays: forex still trades on Canada Day or Thanksgiving, but CAD liquidity is thinner. See market holidays.

Newfoundland is 30 minutes off the other Atlantic zones, and most of Saskatchewan doesn't observe daylight saving time — the clock accounts for both.