CME Holiday Schedule 2026: Futures Market Holiday Calendar

Quick answer: CME futures markets observe about ten US holidays in 2026 — but most of them are early closes, not full closures. On a typical holiday, futures trade a normal overnight and morning session, halt around 1:00 PM ET, and reopen at 6:00 PM ET that evening or Sunday. Full closures are rare: Good Friday, Christmas Day, and New Year’s Day. That’s the single most misunderstood fact about futures holidays — the futures market is frequently open while the stock market is dark.

CME Holiday Calendar 2026

Every holiday that touches the CME Globex schedule in 2026, with status, halt time, and when trading resumes. All times Eastern:

One honesty note you won’t find on aggregator calendars: CME finalizes exact holiday hours only about two weeks before each holiday, in coordination with NYSE and SIFMA. The times above are the verified pattern CME has published and followed; for a holiday that’s days away, confirm the final schedule on CME’s official trading hours page — times occasionally shift by 15–30 minutes, and special cases (like this year’s Good Friday) get unique treatment.

Is the Futures Market Open on Thanksgiving?

Yes — in the morning. On Thursday, November 26, 2026, futures trade a normal overnight and morning session, then halt at 1:00 PM ET. Globex reopens at 6:00 PM ET that evening for Friday’s shortened session, which itself halts early at 1:15 PM ET before the weekend. The stock market, by contrast, is fully closed Thursday — so Thanksgiving morning is one of the clearest examples of futures trading while equities sleep. Liquidity is thin and moves can be jumpy; most funded traders treat both days as optional half-days at reduced size, if they trade them at all.

Is the Futures Market Open on Christmas?

Christmas Day (Friday, December 25, 2026): fully closed. Christmas Eve trades a morning session and halts at 1:15 PM ET Thursday — and because Christmas falls on a Friday this year, that Thursday halt is the last trading of the week. Globex reopens Sunday, December 27 at 6:00 PM ET. If you hold a funded account, note the cluster: Dec 24 half-day, Dec 25 closed, then a normal final week — holiday-season trading-day counts get thin, which matters if you’re pushing to satisfy minimum-day requirements before year end.

Is the Futures Market Open on New Year’s?

New Year’s Day 2026 (Thursday, January 1): fully closed, with trading resuming Thursday evening at 6:00 PM ET for Friday’s session. Looking ahead to the year boundary: New Year’s Eve (Thursday, December 31, 2026) trades a normal session with the standard 5:00 PM ET close, and because January 1, 2027 lands on a Friday, the market then stays dark through the weekend — reopening Sunday, January 3, 2027 at 6:00 PM ET.

Is the Futures Market Open on July 4th?

July 4, 2026 falls on a Saturday, so the observed holiday is Friday, July 3: futures trade the overnight and morning session, halt at 1:00 PM ET, and stay closed into the weekend — reopening Sunday, July 5 at 6:00 PM ET. Practically, the whole week runs thin: volume drains from Thursday afternoon onward as desks close early for the long weekend.

Memorial Day, Labor Day, MLK & the Other Monday Holidays

The Monday federal holidays — Martin Luther King Jr. Day (Jan 19), Presidents’ Day (Feb 16), Memorial Day (May 25), and Labor Day (Sep 7) — all follow the same pattern: normal overnight session, morning trading, halt at 1:00 PM ET, reopen at 6:00 PM ET the same evening for Tuesday’s trade date. Juneteenth (Friday, June 19) follows the same halt but rolls into the weekend, reopening Sunday. These half-days trade like miniature Fridays: real liquidity in the morning, a drift into the halt, and — worth knowing — they still count as trading days at most firms if you place qualifying trades.

Good Friday 2026: The Special Case

Friday, April 3, 2026 is the year’s oddest session. Good Friday normally closes futures entirely — but in 2026 it collides with the monthly jobs report (Non-Farm Payrolls, 8:30 AM ET). Per CME’s official advisory, equity index products open for an abbreviated morning session around the release while most other product groups stay closed, and the session’s trades settle against Thursday’s marks. If you trade the NFP reaction that morning, know that liquidity is a fraction of a normal jobs Friday and your prop firm’s news-event rules apply with less depth to hide in. Everything reopens normally Sunday, April 5 at 6:00 PM ET.

CME vs Stock Market Holidays: They’re Not the Same Calendar

The CME Globex calendar and the NYSE calendar overlap but don’t match, and the differences are exactly where traders get surprised. The stock market takes full closures on Thanksgiving, while futures trade the morning. The stock market closes completely on Good Friday every year, while CME’s treatment varies by year and product. And on the Monday half-holidays, equities trade a full 9:30–4:00 session while futures halt at 1:00 PM ET — meaning index futures stop trading while the stock market is still open, a genuinely weird two hours where cash prices move without a live futures print. If you trade ES or NQ against cash-market signals, mark those afternoons.

What an Early Close Means for Your Positions

An early close is a real close: at the halt time, the session ends, daily settlement runs, and — critically for funded traders — your prop firm’s auto-flatten fires earlier too. Firms that force flat at 4:45–4:59 PM ET on normal days shift that deadline to just before the holiday halt (typically 12:45–12:59 PM ET on a 1:00 PM close). Miss it and the risk engine closes you, same as any Friday. Settlement and end-of-day drawdown recalculation happen at the early settlement, not at 5:00 PM. The full mechanics of daily closes and flatten windows are on our futures trading hours guide — this page and that one are two halves of the same clock.

Do Holidays Count as Trading Days for Prop Firms?

The question every funded trader eventually asks in December: generally, yes — early-close days count as full trading days if you place trades that satisfy your firm’s qualifying-day definition (most require a filled trade; some require a minimum profit). Full closures obviously count for nobody. The real planning impact is density: a holiday-heavy stretch like Thanksgiving week (half-day Thursday, half-day Friday) or Christmas week can leave you two or three qualifying days short of a payout threshold you expected to hit. Check your math against the calendar with our consistency calculator, count the year’s real sessions on how many trading days in a year, and remember the trading-day boundary runs 6:00 PM to 5:00 PM ET — not the calendar day. Firm-by-firm payout and minimum-day rules live on our prop firm rankings and rules hub.