GOLD · 6 MIN READ
Gold trading hours and the market calendar
Gold is close enough to round-the-clock that most people never check the schedule, and then lose money to the one hour a day it is shut.
The weekly schedule
Spot gold opens Sunday evening and closes Friday evening, running continuously in between apart from a short daily maintenance break. In broker server time — commonly GMT+2 or GMT+3 — that is roughly 23 hours of trading per weekday.
| Period | Status | What to expect |
|---|---|---|
| Sunday evening open | Opens | Wide spreads, thin liquidity, frequent gaps from Friday's close |
| Monday to Thursday | Open ~23h/day | One daily break at the broker's rollover |
| Daily rollover | Closed ~1h | Spreads widen sharply either side of it |
| Friday evening close | Closes | Positions held over the weekend carry gap risk |
| Saturday, Sunday daytime | Closed | No pricing, no execution, no stop protection |
This page covers when the market is open. For which of those hours are actually worth trading, see gold trading sessions — that is a different question with a different answer.
Server time is not your time
Every schedule inside MetaTrader is expressed in the broker's server time, which is frequently GMT+2 or GMT+3 regardless of where the broker is based. A session filter set to 06:00–21:00 means server hours, and getting the offset wrong shifts your entire trading window by hours.
The offset also moves twice a year if the server observes daylight saving and you do not. Any hard-coded conversion drifts silently — read it from the terminal rather than from the broker's stated headquarters. See server time vs local time.
The two closures that catch people out
The daily rollover is the first. It is short, it moves with daylight saving, and the spread widens sharply on both sides of it. Orders placed into that window fill badly, and a strategy that does not exclude it is paying a toll every day.
The weekend gap is the second. Gold does not stop reacting to news when the market shuts — it simply cannot reprice until Sunday, and it then opens wherever it opens. A stop loss provides no protection across a gap, because there is no price in between to trigger it at.
Holidays
Gold follows a reduced schedule around major US market holidays, and closes entirely for Christmas and New Year. Exact dates vary by broker and are published each year rather than fixed, so check your broker's calendar instead of assuming.
Half-days matter more than closures. A holiday session that is technically open but has a fraction of normal participation produces wide spreads and unreliable structure — thin conditions rather than genuinely tradeable ones.
Common questions
What are gold trading hours?
Spot gold (XAUUSD) trades from Sunday evening to Friday evening, roughly 23 hours per weekday with a short daily break at the broker's rollover. All times are in broker server time, commonly GMT+2 or GMT+3, which is usually not your local time.
Is the gold market open 24/7?
No. It is closed all day Saturday and for most of Sunday, and it has a short daily maintenance break. The "24-hour market" description refers to weekdays only, and even then there is roughly one hour a day when you cannot trade or manage a position.
Can I leave a gold position open over the weekend?
You can, but a stop loss does not protect you across the weekend gap — if price reopens beyond your stop, you are filled at the reopening price, not your stop level. Gold reacts to news that breaks while the market is shut, so weekend exposure is genuinely different from weekday exposure.
Keep reading
Educational information only, not financial advice. Trading leveraged products carries substantial risk of loss. Last updated 2026-08-11.