Futures Market Hours: CME Sessions, Holidays and Prop Firm Flat-By Times

Futures market hours for ES, NQ, MES and MNQ on CME Globex run Sunday 6:00 PM to Friday 5:00 PM ET, with a one-hour break every weekday from 5:00 to 6:00 PM ET. On a prop firm account the time that matters is earlier: the firms below make you flat between 4:10 PM and 4:59 PM ET, and a position still open at that minute is closed for you or fails the account.

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Futures market hours in ET, CT and PT

That is 23 hours a day, five days a week. The trading day that CME settles runs from the 6:00 PM ET reopen to the 5:00 PM ET close the next afternoon, so Sunday evening’s trades belong to Monday. Most prop firms use the same day for their daily loss limits and end-of-day drawdown: a loss you take at 8:00 PM ET on Tuesday counts against Wednesday.

The 9:30 AM to 4:00 PM ET window is the stock market session, not a futures session. Futures trade through it without a break, but most of the day’s volume and most of the big moves happen inside it.

Prop firm flat-by times

CME stays open until 5:00 PM ET. Almost no prop firm lets you stay in that long. Each firm sets its own cutoff, usually a few minutes to an hour before the CME close, and the rule differs on what happens if you miss it: some firms close the position and move on, others fail the account. The table is sorted from the earliest cutoff to the latest.

Futures holiday hours

CME posts the exact hours for each US holiday about two weeks before it. We add them here when they are published. Times below are for equity index futures (ES, NQ and the micros) in ET.

Holiday cutoffs at prop firms usually come before the CME halt. Of the firms above, Tradeify is the only one with a holiday time in the rule we hold: “Flat by 4:45 PM ET (12:59 PM on holiday half-days); open positions are auto-closed, not a breach”. The others announce holiday cutoffs shortly before the day. If your firm has not posted a holiday time, do not assume the normal cutoff applies. On a day CME halts at 1:00 PM ET, a 4:45 PM ET rule is meaningless and the firm will set its own.

Daylight saving time

US clocks go back on Sunday, November 1, 2026. CME’s hours are set in Chicago time, so in ET, CT and PT nothing moves. If you trade from outside the US, the session shifts by an hour for you, and it shifts twice in spring and autumn when Europe and the US change clocks on different weekends. A firm that states its cutoff in UTC or European time moves against ET on those dates too, which is why those rows give the firm’s own time zone.

Contract month codes and expiry

Every futures symbol ends with a month letter and a year digit: ESZ6 is the December 2026 E-mini S&P 500, NQH7 is March 2027 Nasdaq-100.

• F Jan
• G Feb
• H Mar
• J Apr
• K May
• M Jun
• N Jul
• Q Aug
• U Sep
• V Oct
• X Nov
• Z Dec

ES, NQ, MES and MNQ list only March, June, September and December (H, M, U, Z) and expire on the third Friday of the month. Volume moves to the next contract about a week earlier. Most prop firms follow that roll in their platforms, and a position left in the expiring month is your problem, not theirs.

Futures market hours: questions traders ask