Live status, 2026 calendar and Europe/Berlin timezone
XETRA opens at 09:00 and closes at 17:30, Monday to Friday. It’s the Frankfurt Stock Exchange’s main electronic trading platform, operated by Deutsche Börse AG, where the DAX 40 trades.
The opening auction phase (Eröffnungsauktion) starts at 08:00, and the Schlussauktion closing auction phase sets the official closing price between 17:30 and 17:35.
This page covers XETRA’s exact trading hours, the 2026 public holiday calendar, peak liquidity windows on the DAX 40, and how XETRA hours compare to US markets.
The XETRA session runs eight and a half hours: 09:00 to 17:30, Monday to Friday.
XETRA handles over 90% of all German equity trading. The Frankfurt trading floor still exists, but it handles a marginal share of volume; the vast majority has gone through XETRA since its launch in 1997.
The reference time zone is Europe/Berlin: CET in winter (UTC+1), CEST in summer (UTC+2). This is the same offset as Paris, meaning XETRA and Euronext Paris open and close at the exact same UTC moment, winter and summer alike.
Eröffnungsauktion: 08:00 to 09:00. Orders enter a closed order book from 08:00 without executing. From 08:50, the XETRA algorithm calculates the theoretical equilibrium price. The phase closes between 08:58 and 09:02 via a random mechanism unique to XETRA: the exact second is not known in advance, which prevents manipulation of the opening price.
Schlussauktion: 17:30 to ~17:35. Continuous trading stops at 17:30. The closing auction determines the official closing price, with a random end within the 17:30–17:35 window. This price is the reference for DAX 40 calculation, valuation of derivatives indexed on the index, and settlement of structured products.
XETRA closes for five full trading days in 2026 and has two half-sessions at year-end. The official XETRA trading calendar is published by Deutsche Börse.
| Date | Public holiday | Session |
|---|---|---|
| Thursday, 1 January 2026 | New Year’s Day | Closed |
| Friday, 3 April 2026 | Good Friday | Closed |
| Monday, 6 April 2026 | Easter Monday | Closed |
| Friday, 1 May 2026 | Labour Day | Closed |
| Thursday, 24 December 2026 | Christmas Eve | Half-session (closes 14:00) |
| Friday, 25 December 2026 | Christmas Day | Closed |
| Thursday, 31 December 2026 | New Year’s Eve | Half-session (closes 14:00) |
Unlike Euronext Paris, the XETRA calendar normally includes 26 December (Zweiter Weihnachtstag, a public holiday in Germany). In 2026, that date falls on a Saturday, so XETRA does not close one day more than Paris this year. In years where 26 December falls on a weekday, XETRA has one extra closure compared to Paris.
| Exchange | Open | Close | Benchmark index | Time zone |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🇩🇪 XETRA (Frankfurt) | 09:00 | 17:30 | DAX 40 | CET (UTC+1) |
| 🇫🇷 Euronext Paris | 09:00 | 17:30 | CAC 40 | CET (UTC+1) |
| 🇬🇧 LSE (London) | 08:00* | 16:30* | FTSE 100 | GMT (UTC+0) |
| 🇮🇹 Borsa Italiana | 09:00 | 17:30 | FTSE MIB | CET (UTC+1) |
| 🇪🇸 BME (Madrid) | 09:00 | 17:30 | IBEX 35 | CET (UTC+1) |
*Local London time. In Frankfurt time, the LSE opens and closes at the same moment as XETRA (CET/GMT offset is a constant one hour).
From Frankfurt, the gap with New York is six hours for most of the year.
During the period when both regions are on summer time (late March to early November):
A few days a year, the gap shifts by one hour: Europe and the US do not switch to summer time on the same date (early March and late October). During these transition windows, NYSE opens at 14:30 Frankfurt time instead of 15:30.
To see live hours for 17 global exchanges, check our interactive market hours tool, which converts everything to your local time zone automatically.
Monday to Friday, except the public holidays listed above. The widget at the top of this page shows live status.
09:00 Frankfurt time (Europe/Berlin time zone). The Eröffnungsauktion starts at 08:00, but no trades execute before 09:00.
Continuous trading stops at 17:30. The Schlussauktion sets the official closing price between 17:30 and ~17:35, with a random end within that window.
The Frankfurt Stock Exchange (Frankfurter Wertpapierbörse) is the legal institution and physical trading floor, operated by Deutsche Börse AG. XETRA is its electronic trading platform. In practice, over 90% of German equity transactions go through XETRA.
Yes, exactly. The Europe/Berlin and Europe/Paris time zones share the same UTC offset year-round. Both markets open at 09:00 and close at 17:30 at the exact same universal moment, winter and summer.
Since December 2025, Deutsche Börse has offered the Extended Xetra Retail Service: participating brokers give their retail clients a wider window from 08:00 to 22:00 CET. The official market session (DAX 40, fixing, institutional volume) remains 09:00–17:30. Outside that window, spreads are wider and liquidity is significantly lower.
The DAX 40 (40 largest caps), MDAX (60 mid-caps), SDAX (70 small-caps), and TecDAX (30 technology stocks). For active traders, the DAX 40 and its futures are the central benchmark of the session.
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.
