Can You Trade or Exercise Expiring Options in Extended Hours?

As of October 13, 2026, no US exchange trades single-stock options in extended hours yet, but the approved rules already answer the expiration-day question. NYSE American's Rule 901.2NY(i) says an expiring eligible equity option keeps trading through its 4:00 to 4:15 p.m. ET Late session, and Nasdaq MRX says equity options trade through its Extended Close on their expiration date. Exercise is a separate clock: FINRA Rule 2360 gives option holders until 5:30 p.m. ET on expiration day to make a final exercise decision, and both exchanges say the new sessions do not change how exercise works. In short, you will be able to trade an expiring option until 4:15 p.m. and decide on exercise until 5:30 p.m.

Can you trade or exercise expiring stock options in extended hours?

Trading and exercise are governed by different rules, and mixing them up is where most of the confusion comes from. Trading is set by the exchange: on NYSE American and Nasdaq MRX, an option that expires today stays tradable through the afternoon session, but only for classes on the exchange's extended-hours list and only once the exchange has launched. Exercise is set by FINRA and the Options Clearing Corporation (OCC), and the extended sessions do not move it.

The timing is still ahead of us. NYSE American has scheduled its start for Monday, October 19, 2026, pending regulatory effectiveness, according to its September 18 Trader Update, and we found no later notice. Nasdaq MRX and Cboe have no confirmed start dates. The full schedule and eligibility criteria are in hi2morrow's guide to the extended trading hours for stock options. Until a session is live for your option class, an expiring option trades only from 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. ET, with options on some exchange-traded products running to 4:15 p.m.

Does an option that expires today trade in the morning session?

On Nasdaq MRX, yes, once the session exists. MRX's filing says any series in an eligible class that will be available in the following regular session is available in its Early ETH session, and the same filing carries the exchange's existing Monday and Wednesday expirations into extended hours, according to the SEC's approval order, Release No. 34-105785. An option expiring on a Friday would therefore trade in the 7:30 to 9:25 a.m. window on that Friday, provided its class is eligible. For how those short-dated series are listed, see hi2morrow's guide to which stocks and ETFs have Monday and Wednesday options.

NYSE American says its extended sessions use the exchange's existing criteria for listing option series, which points the same way, but its order is less explicit about the morning of expiration. Cboe's order, Release No. 34-105569, addresses series listing only by reference to existing criteria and says nothing specific about expiring series, so this article does not assume that Cboe treats them the same way.

Can you close an expiring option between 4:00 and 4:15 p.m.?

On the two exchanges that address it, yes, and this is the most concrete rule on the page. NYSE American's proposed Rule 901.2NY(i) provides that expiring equity options eligible for extended hours "shall continue to trade through the Late Trading Session." The exchange links this to American-style physical settlement: it will allow participants to close expiring positions rather than take or deliver shares, according to the SEC's order, Release No. 34-106218. Nasdaq MRX's filing reaches the same result for equity options, which remain available through its Extended Close on their expiration date.

Order rules still apply. NYSE American does not allow market orders in either extended session, so closing an expiring position at 4:10 p.m. means a limit order, and spreads in a thin 15-minute window can be wide. hi2morrow's guide to what NYSE American approved for extended-hours options covers the session designations and order types. On MRX, a Day order marked for all sessions expires at 4:15 p.m., while a regular-hours-only order expires at 4:00. Options on the ETFs that already trade until 4:15 in the regular session, such as SPY, QQQ and IWM on NYSE American's expected list, do not get a separate Late session.

What is the exercise cut-off for expiring options?

Under FINRA Rule 2360(b)(23)(A)(iii), option holders have until 5:30 p.m. ET on the business day of expiration to make a final exercise decision, and members may not accept exercise instructions after 5:30 p.m. ET. FINRA's Rule 2360 lets a firm set an earlier internal cut-off for its customers, so your broker's deadline can be sooner than 5:30 p.m. but never later. FINRA's Information Notice of February 3, 2021 restates the same cut-off in plain terms.

The rule says nothing about extended-hours trading and contains no exception for the 4:00 to 4:15 p.m. session. The last possible trade in an expiring option is therefore at 4:15 p.m., and the exercise decision window stays open for 75 minutes after that. A separate 7:30 p.m. ET deadline in the rule, (b)(23)(A)(iv), applies to the firm filing a Contrary Exercise Advice for customer accounts. It is the firm's deadline, not yours, and it does not extend the customer decision beyond 5:30 p.m.

After the cut-off, a decision can be changed only in narrow cases such as good-faith errors, unmatched trades or extraordinary circumstances. The rule also treats preparing or submitting an exercise instruction on the basis of material information released after the cut-off as inconsistent with just and equitable principles of trade.

Can an after-hours move get your option exercised or assigned?

It can, and this is the practical risk for sellers of weekly and 0DTE options. Under FINRA's notice, in-the-money expiring standardized equity options are generally exercised automatically unless the holder says otherwise, and OCC's exercise-by-exception procedure, as described in a 2008 OCC rule filing, judges in-the-money status against the closing price of the underlying on the last trading day. That filing is old, and we could not open OCC's current rule text, so the exact in-the-money threshold is not given here.

The holder can also submit a Contrary Exercise Advice before the cut-off, telling the firm to exercise an option that would not be exercised automatically, or to skip one that would. So an option that finished slightly out of the money at 4:00 p.m. can still be exercised if news changes the stock before 5:30 p.m. The seller then learns about the assignment afterwards, as a position in the stock.

Take a hypothetical ABC, on the extended-hours list, with options expiring this Friday. A trader is short one call with a $100 strike. ABC closes at $99.90 at 4:00 p.m., so the call finishes out of the money, and at 4:05 p.m. the company releases news and ABC trades after hours at $102.50. Once the Late session is live on an exchange that lists ABC, the seller can try to buy the call back with a limit order between 4:00 and 4:15 p.m., although a market order would be rejected and the spread may be wide, so no price is assured. If the call stays open, the holder can instruct the firm to exercise it before the firm's cut-off, at most 5:30 p.m., and a seller who does not own the shares can be assigned and wake up on Monday short 100 shares of ABC. News that reaches the market at 5:45 p.m. cannot properly be used for that decision.

Alexander Styopin's professional view: the new session does not change who decides about exercise, it changes how much time the seller has to react. Before, the seller's last chance to trade was the 4:00 p.m. close, while the holder could still act on after-hours news until 5:30 p.m. With the Late session, the seller gets 15 more minutes of trading, and the key risk is still an earnings release or other news in the half-hour after the close. Anyone short options into an expiration with a catalyst scheduled after the bell should know the broker's own cut-off, because that is the only deadline that matters in practice.

What do the new sessions not change?

According to the exchanges, the mechanics of exercise. NYSE American says there will be no changes to the processes for clearing, settlement, exercise and expiration, and that OCC has told it no operational changes are required. Nasdaq MRX says that, after discussions with OCC, the clearinghouse will be able to handle exercises of options during extended trading hours, and describes no insurmountable operational challenges in adjusting these processes. The wording differs, so it is safest to treat these as each exchange's statement, not as a finding by the SEC.

OCC's own approved rule, Release No. 34-106469 of September 23, 2026, is the clearing rule that lets the sessions launch. It deals with clearing extended-hours trades and does not address exercise, expiration or cut-off times. In the Cboe proceeding, commenters including SIFMA and Nasdaq raised exercise and assignment notifications, settlement calculations and corporate actions as items to work out. Cboe replied that OCC would use its existing processes, and that a corporate event during the afternoon session would halt the stock and then the option.

Two dates are worth checking before you rely on any of this: the launch date for your exchange and your broker's own exercise deadline. Both can change, and neither is set by the rules covered here.

Educational material only. Not investment or legal advice. Trading hours, exercise deadlines, order handling, and margin can vary by exchange, broker, account type, and jurisdiction.

Author: Alexander Styopin, hi2morrow analyst and economist with 25 years of experience in the US stock market