Indian Stock Market Trading Hours & Settlement (T+1)
The Indian equity market has fixed trading hours and a defined settlement cycle. Knowing them matters for when prices update and when trades actually complete.
Trading hours
- Pre-open session — 9:00 AM to 9:15 AM IST, used to discover a fair opening price.
- Normal trading — 9:15 AM to 3:30 PM IST, Monday to Friday.
- Closed — weekends and exchange holidays (there is no trading on those days).
Both the NSE and BSE follow the same core hours. There is no US-style extended after-hours session for regular equity trading.
T+1 settlement
India runs a T+1 settlement cycle: a trade executed on day T is settled — shares and money actually change hands — on the next business day. India was among the first major markets to move fully to T+1, which reduces risk and frees up capital faster. It's also why a dividend's ex-date is typically one business day before the record date.
Why it matters for data
End-of-day price data has one row per trading day only — never weekends or holidays. A gap on a single date is a market holiday, not missing data. See how to get prices.