Trading Holidays 2026 (NSE and BSE)

The SEBI study on individual traders in the equity derivatives segment found over 91 percent net loss-making in FY25, with aggregate net losses of about 1,05,603 crore rupees, up roughly 41 percent on the prior year. A meaningful slice of that damage is unforced: a leveraged position carried over a long weekend for no reason other than not reading the calendar, then gapped through a stop on the reopen. Read the holiday list this way and it earns its place next to the position sizing and stop rules, not next to the wall calendar.

These are the full-day trading holidays for the NSE and BSE equity, equity derivatives and currency segments in calendar year 2026, in addition to every Saturday and Sunday. The BSE mirrors the NSE for equities, so the list applies to both. Data as of July 2026, sourced from the official NSE holiday list and circulars; confirm the current NSE circular before you rely on any single date, because the exchanges can add or move dates during the year. Filter to upcoming holidays with the control below; on load, the next holiday is highlighted.

Muhurat and the special day, read together. Diwali Laxmi Pujan falls on Sunday 8 November 2026, an otherwise closed day, on which the exchanges hold a special one-hour evening Muhurat session; the following Tuesday, 10 November, is the full Diwali Balipratipada holiday in the table, and the Monday between them, 9 November, is a normal trading day. The 15 January closure is the clearest proof that the list moves: it was not in the original annual circular and was added days before by a separate exchange notice for the Maharashtra municipal elections. As of July 2026, confirm the official NSE circular for the live list.

Holidays do not fall evenly. They cluster in March to May and again in October to November around the festival season, while February, July and August carry no weekday equity holiday at all in 2026. The gaps matter as much as the clusters: a long unbroken run of trading is where trends extend without a holiday gap, and a dense cluster is where a single week can hold two closures and a shifted expiry.

The monthly count is the quickest read on where the calendar is congested. March is the heaviest month with three closures, and March also carries both the NSE last-Tuesday monthly expiry on 31 March and, for the BSE, the last-Thursday expiry on 26 March, so two of its three holidays are expiry days. Three months carry none.

The equity, equity-derivatives and currency segments share one holiday calendar, so the table above closes all three together. The commodity segment is the exception: the Multi Commodity Exchange keeps its own list, and because commodities track international markets that stay open, on many equity holidays it shuts only the morning session while the evening session still trades. Treat the two calendars as separate documents.

Why the commodity evening session survives many equity holidays. Metals, energy and agricultural benchmarks are set on global venues that do not observe Indian festivals, so a domestic evening commodity session can stay open to track them even when the equity market is shut for the day. The precise list of full-day commodity closures is published separately by the Multi Commodity Exchange; do not infer it from the equity table. As of July 2026, confirm the current commodity exchange circular.

On any day that is not a holiday or a weekend, the equity market runs a fixed intraday schedule. Knowing it is the difference between the market being shut and the market simply not being in continuous trading yet: at 9:05 IST the exchange is open but you are in the pre-open auction, not the continuous session.

Muhurat trading is a special session held on Diwali to mark the start of the new Samvat year in the trading community. For 2026 it is scheduled on Sunday 8 November, Diwali Laxmi Pujan, as a single ceremonial window of about one hour in the evening; the exact timing is announced by the exchanges close to the date, so confirm the circular. It is the one routine case where the market opens on a day that is otherwise a weekly holiday.

Read it for what it is. Muhurat volumes are thin and the session is short, so spreads widen and a market order can fill well away from the last screen price. Many participants place a small, symbolic trade rather than express a real view. The mechanical points that matter are three: the regular Diwali Balipratipada holiday is the following Tuesday, 10 November, so the cash market is shut that day; the Monday between, 9 November, is a full normal session; and any position opened in the Muhurat session settles on the normal cycle, not instantly. A ceremonial trade is fine. Sizing it like a conviction trade in a liquid session is not.

Derivative expiry does not pause for a holiday, it moves. When the scheduled expiry day is a trading holiday, the expiry is brought forward to the previous trading day. As of mid 2026, NSE index derivatives expire on Tuesday, covering both the weekly contracts and the last-Tuesday monthly contract, while BSE index derivatives expire on Thursday. Exchanges have revised expiry weekdays before, most recently in 2025, so treat the weekday as a current convention and confirm the live contract specification.

The collision is concrete in 2026. Six of the sixteen holidays fall on a Tuesday: Holi on 3 March, Shri Mahavir Jayanti on 31 March, Ambedkar Jayanti on 14 April, Dussehra on 20 October, Diwali Balipratipada on 10 November, and Guru Nanak Jayanti on 24 November. Each of those NSE weekly expiries is pulled back to the preceding Monday. Two of them are also the last Tuesday of their month, 31 March and 24 November, so the monthly expiry shifts as well, to Monday 30 March and Monday 23 November. The practical effect is a compressed contract week: a Monday expiry arrives a day earlier than the rhythm most traders carry in their heads, positions they assumed had another session do not, and the settlement and roll all pull forward with it. A trader who marks only the holiday, and not the expiry it drags, is the one caught holding a contract into an early close.

A holiday list looks harmless, which is exactly why it is mishandled. Five recurring errors turn a printed calendar into a real loss.

It is worth saying plainly what the holiday list is for. It is not a convenience so you know when to take a day off; it is a schedule of the gaps your risk has to cross. The SEBI study on individual traders in the equity derivatives segment found over 91 percent net loss-making in FY25, with aggregate net losses of about 1,05,603 crore rupees, up roughly 41 percent on the year before. Not all of that is calendar-driven, but a real and avoidable slice is: leverage held over a long weekend, an expiry missed because it jumped to a Monday, a stop that could not fire because the market was shut. These are unforced errors, the cheapest category of loss to eliminate, because eliminating them costs nothing but attention.

The desk habit is simple and unglamorous. Before every holiday, and especially before a long weekend or an expiry-adjacent one, a serious trader asks one question of each open position: what happens to this if the market gaps on the reopen, and can I survive that gap at this size. If the answer is uncomfortable, the position is trimmed, hedged, or closed before the close, not after the gap. The 2026 list above is the input to that question. A trader who reads it as a risk map, and sizes so that a holiday gap is survivable, has already separated themselves from the majority of the FY25 cohort, who read the same list as a set of days off.

• The official 2026 holiday list. NSE, Market Timings and Holidays, the exchange trading and clearing holiday list for the equity, equity-derivatives and currency-derivatives segments for 2026, and the corresponding NSE holiday circular. The BSE mirrors this calendar for equities. As of July 2026, verify the current NSE circular. nseindia.com
• The 15 January special holiday. NSE and BSE special trading holiday for 15 January 2026 on account of the Maharashtra municipal corporation elections, declared by separate exchange circular in January 2026, in addition to the original annual list. This is the worked example of a list that changes mid-year. nseindia.com
• Expiry-day convention. Exchange circulars on the revision of index derivative expiry days effective September 2025, with NSE index derivatives expiring on Tuesday and BSE on Thursday, and the standing rule that expiry advances to the previous trading day when the expiry day is a holiday. Confirm the current contract specification. nseindia.com
• The FY25 loss base rate. SEBI study on the profit and loss of individual traders in the equity derivatives segment: over 91 percent net loss-making in FY25, with aggregate net losses of about 1,05,603 crore rupees, up roughly 41 percent from FY24. sebi.gov.in