US Stock Market Holidays, Early Closes and Settlement Dates

NYSE and Nasdaq close for ten full-day holidays in both 2026 and 2027, and they shorten the session to 1:00 p.m. ET on a small number of days: November 27 and December 24 in 2026, and only November 26 in 2027. Most US stock trades settle T+1, so every closure also moves settlement. Two bank holidays, Columbus Day and Veterans Day, work the other way: stocks trade normally, but nothing settles. Early-close days, by contrast, are ordinary settlement days.

What is left of the 2026 calendar

Eight of this year's ten closures are already behind us: New Year's Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Presidents Day, Good Friday on April 3, Memorial Day, Juneteenth on June 19, Independence Day observed on Friday, July 3, and Labor Day on September 7. According to the NYSE holiday and trading-hours calendar, two full closures remain: Thanksgiving on Thursday, November 26, and Christmas on Friday, December 25.

Two early closes remain as well. On Friday, November 27, the day after Thanksgiving, and on Thursday, December 24, Christmas Eve, the regular stock session ends at 1:00 p.m. ET, eligible options stop at 1:15 p.m., and the late trading sessions of NYSE American, NYSE Arca, NYSE National, and NYSE Texas end at 5:00 p.m. instead of 8:00 p.m. Nasdaq's US equity and options holiday schedule lists the same closures and the same early-close dates, and Nasdaq sends separate alerts with its system operating times before each shortened day.

The fall also contains the two dates that cause most settlement surprises: Monday, October 12 (Columbus Day), which has already passed, and Wednesday, November 11 (Veterans Day). The market is open on both. Settlement is not, which is covered in its own section below.

The year then ends with a four-day gap in settlement. Friday, January 1, 2027 is a market holiday, so a stock sold on Thursday, December 31, 2026 settles on Monday, January 4, 2027. For tax purposes the sale still belongs to 2026, because the trade date, not the settlement date, determines the year.

The 2027 NYSE and Nasdaq calendar

NYSE has already published its 2027 schedule, and the two exchanges observe the same full-day holidays. In 2027 the regular stock market is closed on:

1. Friday, January 1: New Year's Day
2. Monday, January 18: Martin Luther King Jr. Day
3. Monday, February 15: Washington's Birthday (Presidents Day)
4. Friday, March 26: Good Friday
5. Monday, May 31: Memorial Day
6. Friday, June 18: Juneteenth, observed because June 19 falls on a Saturday
7. Monday, July 5: Independence Day, observed because July 4 falls on a Sunday
8. Monday, September 6: Labor Day
9. Thursday, November 25: Thanksgiving
10. Friday, December 24: Christmas, observed because December 25 falls on a Saturday

The only scheduled early close in 2027 is Friday, November 26, the day after Thanksgiving, again at 1:00 p.m. ET. There is no July half day, because July 3 is a Saturday, and there is no Christmas Eve half day, because December 24 is itself the holiday. Anyone who carries over the 2026 habit of treating Christmas Eve as a shortened session will plan for a trading day that does not exist.

The calendar also has a gap at the other end. January 1, 2028 falls on a Saturday, and NYSE states that no New Year's Day holiday will be observed for it, so Friday, December 31, 2027 is a full trading day. Looking one year further, NYSE lists early closes on Monday, July 3, 2028 and Friday, November 24, 2028.

Bank-only holidays: the market trades, settlement waits

The stock exchange calendar and the settlement calendar are not the same document. Settlement needs the banking system, and the Federal Reserve closes on two days when the exchanges stay open. FINRA's holiday schedule for margin extensions describes October 12 and November 11, 2026 in exactly those terms: bank holiday only, securities exchanges open, no settlement. The Federal Reserve holiday schedule puts the same two holidays on Monday, October 11 and Thursday, November 11 in 2027.

On those days you can buy and sell normally, and the trade gets that day's trade date. What you cannot do is count the day as a settlement day. Trades from the previous business day and trades from the holiday itself settle together on the next day. The consequences for sale proceeds and cash accounts, including a worked example around Columbus Day 2026, are covered in hi2morrow's guide to whether stock sale proceeds settle after a Friday or a holiday.

The mismatch also runs in the opposite direction. Good Friday is not a Federal Reserve holiday, yet the exchanges close, and so does the equity clearing cycle. The same pattern appears in 2027 on Friday, June 18 and Friday, December 24: under the Fed's rule, banks stay open on the Friday before a Saturday holiday, but NYSE observes both holidays on those Fridays. When the stock market is closed, there is no regular-way stock settlement, as DTCC's Juneteenth 2026 notice illustrates: NSCC was closed and no CNS settlement took place that day. For a stock trader, the working rule is simple. A settlement day needs both an open stock market and open banks.

How the holidays move T+1 in 2027

T+1 means one settlement business day after the trade date, not one calendar day. FINRA's explanation of settlement cycles describes it as the next business day following the transaction, a standard that has applied since May 28, 2024. A holiday or bank-only day between the trade date and settlement simply pushes the settlement date forward.

Consider a hypothetical sale in the week of Juneteenth 2027. A trader sells 500 shares of ABC on Thursday, June 17 at $32.40, for proceeds of $16,200. The next day is a market holiday, the weekend follows, and the sale settles on Monday, June 21, four calendar days later. Two weeks later the same trader sells another 500 shares at $33.10, or $16,550, on Friday, July 2. Monday, July 5 is the observed Independence Day, so that sale settles on Tuesday, July 6. Neither date is unusual on its own, but a trader who planned to withdraw the first $16,200 on Friday, June 18, or to use the second amount as settled cash on Monday, July 5, would be off by a full business day each time.

The remaining 2027 dates follow the same logic. A trade on Thursday, March 25 settles Monday, March 29 because of Good Friday. A trade on Friday, October 8 skips Columbus Day and settles Tuesday, October 12, and so does a trade on Columbus Day itself. Because Veterans Day falls on a Thursday, a trade on Wednesday, November 10 settles Friday, November 12. A trade on Wednesday, November 24 settles on the early-close Friday, November 26, since a shortened session is still a full settlement day. A trade on Thursday, December 23 skips the observed Christmas holiday and settles Monday, December 27. At year-end, a trade on Friday, December 31, 2027 settles Monday, January 3, 2028, with no extra holiday in between.

Early closes and the new overnight session

An early close shortens the trading day without making it a holiday. The regular session and the closing auction happen at 1:00 p.m. ET, a regular-hours Day order that has not filled expires then, and brokers decide for themselves whether they offer any afternoon session. What that means for premarket, after-hours, and working orders is explained in hi2morrow's guide to extended-hours trading on an early-close day.

The calendar gains another layer on December 6, 2026, when NYSE and Nasdaq plan to move to a 23-hour trading day, with the consolidated data feeds running from 9:00 p.m. ET Sunday to 8:00 p.m. ET Friday. Each window from 9:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. counts as one trading day, so a trade at 10:00 p.m. on a Tuesday carries Wednesday's trade date and settles T+1 from Wednesday. Holidays interrupt this cycle in a specific way. The CTA Plan's extended trading hours FAQ states that no session starts on the evening before a US holiday or during regular hours on the holiday, and the next session begins on the evening of the holiday if the following day is a business day.

In practice, the first holidays under the new schedule will look like this. There is no night session on Thursday, December 24, 2026, and none on Friday, December 25; trading resumes at 9:00 p.m. on Sunday, December 27. The same happens at New Year: no session on the evening of Thursday, December 31, and the next one opens Sunday, January 3, 2027. For a Monday holiday such as Martin Luther King Jr. Day on January 18, 2027, the usual Sunday-night start is skipped and the night session opens Monday at 9:00 p.m. for Tuesday's trading day. Thanksgiving 2027 shows the reverse: there is no session on the evening of Wednesday, November 24, but the session for the early-close Friday begins on Thanksgiving evening, November 25, at 9:00 p.m. The normal Sunday-to-Friday rhythm these exceptions interrupt is set out in hi2morrow's guide to when the US stock trading week starts and ends under 23/5.

Broker overnight products run on their own calendars, which may not match the exchange schedule, and brokers differ in how they date and settle late-evening trades. Before relying on an overnight order near a holiday, check the broker's own holiday notice and the trade date on the confirmation rather than the calendar date on your screen.

Reading the calendar like a trader

A useful way to read any holiday date is to ask three separate questions: is the stock market open, does the session end early, and does settlement happen? A normal weekday answers yes, no, yes. Thanksgiving answers no, and nothing settles. The Friday after Thanksgiving answers yes, yes, yes. Columbus Day and Veterans Day answer yes, no, no, which is exactly why they cause trouble. Good Friday and the Friday-observed holidays of 2027 answer no even though the banks are open.

Scheduled calendars also have limits. Unscheduled closures, such as those caused by national events, severe weather, or technical failures, override any published list, and the exchanges and DTCC announce them separately. The equity calendar does not apply automatically to options exercise deadlines, bonds, futures, mutual funds, or foreign-listed securities, which follow their own schedules. The settlement date on the broker's confirmation is the final word for any specific trade.

Alexander Styopin's professional view: Christmas and Thanksgiving rarely hurt anyone, because everyone sees them coming. The costly dates are the ones that look ordinary. In 2026 that means Columbus Day and Veterans Day, when the market is fully open and settlement is not. In 2027 it adds a Christmas Eve that is a holiday rather than a half day and a December 31 that is a normal session. I would put all three layers, trading, early close, and settlement, into the same trading calendar at the start of the year, and add the new overnight session gaps from December 2026 onward. A minute spent on that in January saves a cash-account violation or a missed withdrawal later.

Educational material only. Not investment, legal, or tax advice. Exchange schedules, settlement processing, overnight sessions, and broker holiday hours can change and can vary by broker, account type, and security.

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