F&O Expiry Date and Time: What Traders Must Know
If you trade futures and options, no date on the calendar matters more than expiry day. It is when contracts settle, positions have to be closed or rolled, and the market often moves with unusual speed. And in the last couple of years, the rules around expiry in India have changed more than they had in the previous decade, so even experienced traders have had to relearn the schedule.
This guide explains what F&O expiry is, the current expiry days on the NSE and BSE, how settlement works, and why the day tends to be so eventful.
What is Expiry in Share Market?
When it comes to understanding this question “what is expiry in share market?” Every futures and options contract has a fixed lifespan. The F&O expiry date is the last trading day on which a contract remains valid. Once the market closes on that day, the contract stops existing and is settled according to the exchange’s rules, either in cash or by delivery of the underlying shares. Nothing carries over automatically; if you want continued exposure, you have to take a fresh position in the next contract.
In India, expiry schedules and expiry date in share market are set by the exchanges and overseen by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), which has reshaped the framework recently to reduce the speculative frenzy that used to build up around expiry days.
F&O Expiry Date in Share Market: the Current Schedule
Two regulatory changes matter here. First, a SEBI circular effective 20 November 2024 limited each exchange to weekly options on just one benchmark index, Nifty 50 for the NSE and Sensex for the BSE. Weekly contracts on Bank Nifty, FinNifty, Midcap Nifty, and similar indices were discontinued and moved to monthly cycles. Second, from 1 September 2025 the two exchanges were assigned different weekly expiry days to spread activity across the week.
The current schedule looks like this:
| Contract | Exchange | Weekly expiry | Monthly expiry |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nifty 50 options | NSE | Every Tuesday | Last Tuesday |
| Bank Nifty, FinNifty, stock F&O | NSE | No weekly | Last Tuesday |
| Sensex options | BSE | Every Thursday | Last Thursday |
| Bankex, Sensex 50 | BSE | No weekly | Last Thursday |
One important rule: if an expiry day falls on a trading holiday, the expiry is moved to the previous trading day. Because these dates can shift, the exchange’s live contract list is always the final word before you place an expiry-day trade.
Also Read: What are Futures and Options?
Weekly vs Monthly Expiry Date in Share Market
Weekly contracts exist only for the two benchmark indices and expire every week on the assigned day. Monthly contracts, which include index futures, stock futures, and stock options, expire in the last week of the month, on the last Tuesday for NSE contracts and the last Thursday for BSE contracts. Monthly contracts typically carry deeper liquidity and are used by position traders and hedgers, while weekly options attract shorter-term activity because of their lower premiums and rapid time decay.
What Happens on Expiry Day?
How a contract settles depends on what it is.
Index options and futures are cash-settled. Nothing physical changes hands. The difference between your position and the final settlement price is credited or debited to your trading account.
Since 3 August 2026, the closing price of F&O-eligible stocks comes from a Closing Auction Session (CAS), not from the old 30-minute average. Continuous trading in these stocks stops at 3:15 PM IST. Orders are then collected in one pool between 3:15 PM and 3:35 PM IST and matched at a single price. That price becomes the official close.
Because Nifty 50 and Sensex are calculated from the closing prices of their constituent stocks, index F&O settlement on expiry day now depends on where this auction lands.
Derivatives keep trading till 3:40 PM IST. So there is a window between 3:15 PM and 3:40 PM when index options are trading while the shares underneath them are frozen in the auction.
Stock futures and stock options are physically settled. An in-the-money position left open at expiry can create an obligation to give or take delivery of the actual shares, along with the full transaction value.
Also Read: What is Future Option?
Why Expiry Day Matters
Expiry days tend to see heavier volumes and sharper price swings than ordinary sessions. As contracts approach expiry, time value drains away quickly, an effect known as time decay, and option prices can move fast even on small changes in the underlying. Large open positions being closed or rolled over into the next series add to the churn, and the final half hour in particular can be volatile as settlement prices are locked in.
For option buyers, expiry is unforgiving: an option that is not in-the-money at the close is worth nothing, regardless of how the trade looked earlier in the day. For option sellers, the same day can bring assignment obligations. This concentration of risk into a single session is exactly what prompted SEBI to rationalise the number of weekly expiries in the first place.
What Traders Should Keep in Mind
A few practical habits reduce nasty surprises. Know the f&o expiry date and time of every contract you hold, and remember that the NSE and BSE now expire on different days. Decide in advance whether you intend to square off a position or roll it into the next series, and do it before the final rush rather than during it.
If you trade stock F&O, be especially careful about physical settlement, leaving an in-the-money position open can trigger a delivery obligation you did not plan for. And always check the exchange’s contract list around holidays, since expiry can move to the previous day.
It is also worth being honest about the odds. SEBI’s research has repeatedly shown that the large majority of individual traders in equity derivatives lose money, aggregate losses ran into lakhs of crores over recent years. Expiry-day trading, with its speed and leverage, sits at the riskier end of that activity.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. Nifty 50 weekly options now expire every Tuesday instead of Thursday. This changed from 1 September 2025, after SEBI allowed the two exchanges to keep separate expiry days. NSE monthly contracts, including Bank Nifty and stock F&O, expire on the last Tuesday of the month. On BSE, Sensex expires every Thursday and monthly contracts on the last Thursday.
Open the option chain on the NSE or BSE website, or the F&O section of your trading app, and look at the contract name. Every contract carries its expiry date in the symbol itself, for example NIFTY followed by the date and strike price. The exchange contract list is the final word, especially around trading holidays when expiry moves to the previous trading day.
Since 3 August 2026, index and stock derivatives trade till 3:40 PM IST. Earlier the F&O session closed at 3:30 PM. The change was made because F&O-eligible shares now stop continuous trading at 3:15 PM and go into a Closing Auction Session that ends at 3:35 PM, so traders were given extra time to adjust positions.
Yes. Options and futures can be traded till 3:40 PM IST. Keep in mind that between 3:15 PM and 3:40 PM the shares behind the index are frozen in the closing auction, so the index on your screen may not move even though option prices do. Intraday square-off timings are set by your broker and may be earlier, so check your broker’s cut-off.
Yes, you can hold a futures or options position right up to expiry. Index contracts are cash-settled, so the profit or loss is simply credited or debited. Stock futures and stock options are physically settled, which means an in-the-money position left open can create an obligation to give or take delivery of the actual shares along with the full transaction value.
Yes, options can be bought and sold through the expiry session like any other day. Prices move faster on expiry day because time value drains away quickly, and an option that is not in-the-money at the close ends up worthless. Option sellers also face assignment obligations on that day, so position size and margin matter more than usual.
Generally no. F&O profits are settled by the exchange on the next working day, so the credited amount usually becomes available on T+1. Some brokers allow part of the realised amount to be used as margin the same day, but this depends entirely on the broker’s risk policy.
If the option is out-of-the-money, it expires worthless and the buyer loses the premium paid. If it is in-the-money, it is settled automatically at intrinsic value for index options. For stock options, an in-the-money contract goes into physical settlement, which is where unplanned delivery obligations come from.
Bank Nifty no longer has weekly contracts. It is a monthly product and expires on the last Tuesday of the month, along with FinNifty, Midcap Nifty and stock F&O on the NSE. Weekly contracts on these indices were discontinued from 20 November 2024.
The expiry shifts to the previous trading day. So if a Tuesday is an NSE trading holiday, Nifty contracts expire on Monday. Always check the exchange contract list in a holiday week rather than assuming the usual day.
Because of time decay. An option’s price has two parts, intrinsic value and time value, and the time value shrinks to zero by the close of expiry day. This is why out-of-the-money options can lose most of their value within hours even if the index barely moves.
Weekly contracts exist only for Nifty 50 on NSE and Sensex on BSE, and they expire every week. Monthly contracts cover index futures, stock futures and stock options, and expire in the last week of the month. Monthly contracts usually carry deeper liquidity, while weekly options attract short-term traders because premiums are lower.