Live status, 2026 calendar and Europe/Paris timezone
The Paris Stock Exchange trades from 9:00 AM to 5:30 PM Paris time, Monday to Friday. It closes on weekends and a handful of public holidays each year. A pre-opening phase starts at 7:15 AM, and a closing auction extends the session until 5:35 PM.
This page details the exact hours, the 2026 holiday calendar, the highest-liquidity windows on the CAC 40, and the equivalences with US trading sessions.
The session runs for eight and a half hours: 9:00 AM to 5:30 PM, Monday to Friday. Euronext stays closed on weekends and during the holidays detailed below.
The reference timezone is Europe/Paris: CET in winter (UTC+1), CEST in summer (UTC+2). For traders following the CAC 40 from another country, the schedule shifts twice a year when daylight saving time changes.
Paris opens at the same time as Frankfurt, Milan, Madrid and Zurich, and also London and Helsinki if you account for the time difference.
| Exchange | Open | Close | Timezone |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🇬🇧 London (LSE) | 8:00 AM | 4:30 PM | GMT (UTC+0) |
| 🇫🇷 Paris (Euronext) | 9:00 AM | 5:30 PM | CET (UTC+1) |
| 🇩🇪 Frankfurt (XETRA) | 9:00 AM | 5:30 PM | CET (UTC+1) |
| 🇮🇹 Milan (Borsa Italiana) | 9:00 AM | 5:30 PM | CET (UTC+1) |
| 🇪🇸 Madrid (BME) | 9:00 AM | 5:30 PM | CET (UTC+1) |
| 🇫🇮 Helsinki (Nasdaq) | 10:00 AM | 6:30 PM | EET (UTC+2) |
Continuous trading from 9:00 AM to 5:30 PM only covers part of the trading day. Euronext runs two additional auction phases, around the open and the close, that concentrate most of the traded volume.
Pre-opening from 7:15 AM to 9:00 AM. Orders enter the book without executing. At 9:00 AM, an opening auction crosses all supply and demand to determine a single price: the official opening price of the session.
Closing auction from 5:30 PM to 5:35 PM. Continuous trading stops. For five minutes, end-of-session orders pile up in a frozen order book. At 5:35 PM, Euronext calculates the official closing price. That price is then used to value the CAC 40, calculate derivative indices, and settle structured products indexed to the benchmark.
Trading at Last from 5:35 PM to 5:40 PM. This final five-minute window lets orders execute only at the closing price. It allows traders to close a position without adding noise to the last price of the session.
Practical rule: volumes cluster at the open and the auction. A market order placed outside these windows exposes you to slippage, particularly on small caps. The optimal windows for trading the CAC 40 are detailed below.
Euronext Paris closes on five full trading days in 2026, plus two half-sessions around the end-of-year holidays: the market closes at 2:05 PM on Christmas Eve and on New Year’s Eve.
| Date | Holiday | Session |
|---|---|---|
| Thursday, January 1, 2026 | New Year’s Day | Closed |
| Friday, April 3, 2026 | Good Friday | Closed |
| Monday, April 6, 2026 | Easter Monday | Closed |
| Friday, May 1, 2026 | Labour Day | Closed |
| Thursday, December 24, 2026 | Christmas Eve | Half-session (close 2:05 PM) |
| Friday, December 25, 2026 | Christmas Day | Closed |
| Thursday, December 31, 2026 | New Year’s Eve | Half-session (close 2:05 PM) |
Euronext Paris does not close for Victory in Europe Day (May 8), Ascension, Bastille Day (July 14), Assumption (August 15), All Saints’ Day, or Armistice Day (November 11). The trading calendar follows its own logic, separate from the French public holiday calendar.
Traders who also trade US stocks handle three windows per day. Here are the NYSE and Nasdaq equivalents in Paris time, during the period when daylight saving time is active on both sides of the Atlantic (late March to early November):
| Session | Paris time | New York time (ET) |
|---|---|---|
| US pre-market | 10:00 AM → 3:30 PM | 4:00 AM → 9:30 AM |
| Regular trading | 3:30 PM → 10:00 PM | 9:30 AM → 4:00 PM |
| US after-hours | 10:00 PM → 2:00 AM | 4:00 PM → 8:00 PM |
In winter, the windows shift by one hour. Twice a year, the Paris–New York time difference is temporarily modified, because European and American daylight saving changes do not fall on the same weekend. A check on an up-to-date platform prevents execution errors.
Our interactive stock market hours tool shows the live status of 17 global financial centres with automatic conversion to your timezone.
The Paris session splits into three distinct windows. Intraday volume can triple between the morning rush and the US overlap. Major macro events, such as earnings releases, ECB decisions, or US economic data, can trigger volatility spikes at any point in the session.
The opening rush absorbs orders accumulated during pre-opening. Bid/ask spreads tighten, the previous day’s chart patterns confirm or break within the first few minutes. It is the favourite window of scalpers and intraday traders.
The US overlap remains the densest window of the day for a European trader. American announcements hit the CAC 40 and ADRs directly, the two largest financial centres trade in parallel, and volumes multiply at the end of the session.
Monday to Friday, except on the holidays listed above. The widget at the top of this page shows the live status.
9:00 AM, Paris time. Pre-opening begins at 7:15 AM but no order executes before 9:00 AM.
Continuous trading stops at 5:30 PM. A closing auction sets the official price at 5:35 PM. The Trading at Last window then runs until 5:40 PM.
To align with the close of other major continental venues: Amsterdam, Brussels, Lisbon, Frankfurt, and Milan all close at the same time. This alignment simplifies the calculation of European indices and order settlement.
Not on Euronext. Some French stocks like LVMH, TotalEnergies, or Airbus have ADRs listed in the United States and remain accessible in US pre-market and after-hours. Off-session liquidity on the Paris exchange stays very thin and spreads widen quickly.
No, not all of them. Euronext Paris closes on January 1, Good Friday, Easter Monday, May 1, and Christmas. The exchange stays open on Bastille Day, Ascension, August 15, All Saints’ Day, and Armistice Day.
Maxime holds two master’s degrees from the SKEMA Business School and FFBC. As founder and editor-in-chief of NewTrading.fr, he writes daily about financial trading.
