What Are the Extended Trading Hours for Stock Options?

Options on the most actively traded US stocks are cleared to trade in two new windows: a pre-market session from 7:30 a.m. to 9:25 a.m. ET and a post-market session from 4:00 p.m. to 4:15 p.m. ET, Monday through Friday. The SEC approved Cboe's rules on May 28, 2026, and Cboe announced plans to launch on July 13, 2026. That start depended on a separate clearing rule from the Options Clearing Corporation, which the SEC approved only on September 23, 2026. As of late September 2026, most single-stock options still trade only from 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. ET, and only a short list of the most liquid names will qualify.

When can you trade stock options outside regular hours?

Under the SEC's order approving Cboe's rule change, SEC Release No. 34-105569, eligible equity options on Cboe Exchange can trade from 7:30 a.m. to 9:25 a.m. ET in the morning and from 4:00 p.m. to 4:15 p.m. ET in the afternoon. Cboe files the morning window under its Global Trading Hours (GTH) session and the afternoon window under its Curb session, the same labels it already uses for index options such as SPX and VIX. Both sessions are electronic only and run Monday through Friday.

The five-minute gap between 9:25 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. separates the early session from the regular open. NYSE American, which adopted the same windows, explained in its filing that it ends the early session at 9:25 a.m. because quote widths and market maker participation differ between sessions. On the afternoon side, the extra 15 minutes simply extend the day for eligible single-stock options that previously stopped at 4:00 p.m.

The SEC order describes the change as novel: when it was issued, no US options exchange allowed pre-market trading in multi-listed equity options at all. Other exchanges followed quickly. Nasdaq MRX received approval in June 2026, and in an August 28, 2026 order, SEC Release No. 34-106218, NYSE American was approved for the same 7:30–9:25 a.m. early session and 4:00–4:15 p.m. late session.

Timing is the part most traders get wrong. In its May 28, 2026 announcement, Cboe said its C1 options exchange planned to begin on July 13, 2026, subject to SEC approval of a related rule filing. That date passed without a launch. The NYSE American order states that no exchange may trade equity options in these sessions until the clearinghouse's related rule change is completed, and the SEC approved that change, OCC's extended-trading-hours rule, on September 23, 2026.

Which options qualify for extended hours?

Only a narrow group of option classes can trade outside regular hours. Under Cboe's rule, an equity option class must meet three minimum thresholds measured over the preceding six calendar months:

1. The option class averages at least 150,000 contracts of daily volume.
2. The underlying stock has a market capitalization of at least $50 billion.
3. The underlying stock averages at least 10 million shares of daily trading volume.

Meeting the thresholds makes a class eligible; it does not force Cboe to list it. The rule caps the program at 100 option classes, and Cboe can also add a class that another exchange already trades outside regular hours without counting it toward that cap. FLEX options on the same underlying stock become eligible together with the standard class.

In practice the list is far shorter than 100. In its announcement, Cboe said it anticipated about 20 names at launch, including Nvidia, Tesla and Apple, and the SEC order notes that Cboe would initially offer only a subset of qualifying symbols. Treat any list you see today as provisional until the exchange publishes the classes that are actually live.

Here is how the test works with a hypothetical stock. Suppose ABC options averaged 180,000 contracts a day over the six-month review period, ABC carries a $60 billion market value, and the stock averaged 12 million shares a day. ABC clears all three bars and can be designated for the extended sessions. If ABC options had averaged 120,000 contracts a day instead, the class would fail the options-volume test, even though a $60 billion company with 12 million shares of daily volume is hardly an obscure stock.

How often does the eligible list change?

Cboe reviews eligibility twice a year. The reviews take place as of January 1 and July 1, each using trading data from the previous six months, and newly eligible classes may start trading in the extended sessions on the first trading day of February and August, respectively. The very first list is built from the nearest six-month period ending June 30 or December 31 before launch.

Losing eligibility does not mean an immediate exit. If a class stops meeting the criteria, it may keep trading in the extended sessions for up to 18 months, and Cboe must give reasonable advance notice of the removal date. If activity in the morning session is too thin, Cboe can set an earlier removal date with at least seven days' notice, and if a later review shows the class qualifies again, the removal is cancelled.

Cboe also keeps discretionary powers. It can drop a class for other reasons with at least 30 days' notice, or remove it immediately when investor protection or fair and orderly markets require it. For a trader, the upshot is that ABC's eligibility is not a permanent feature of the contract: a stock that falls out of favor can lose its early-session access over a period of months, not overnight.

How do option hours compare with stock pre-market and after-hours?

Option sessions are much shorter than the stock sessions they sit beside. According to the SEC order, the earliest exchange sessions for US stocks begin at 4:00 a.m. and the latest end at 8:00 p.m. ET, while eligible options start at 7:30 a.m. and stop at 4:15 p.m. Cboe justified the shorter windows by the lack of industry experience with extended equity options trading and a desire to introduce the sessions gradually.

Take ABC again on an ordinary weekday. At 5:00 a.m. ET, ABC shares can already trade on exchanges, but ABC options cannot. At 8:00 a.m., both the stock and its options are open, so a trader reacting to overnight news can hedge a stock position with puts instead of only selling shares. At 4:10 p.m., ABC options are still in the Curb session, but at 4:20 p.m. only the stock remains available, and it can keep trading until 8:00 p.m. For the stock side of those hours, see hi2morrow's guide to how after-hours stock orders work.

Two exceptions keep this from being a clean comparison. Options on certain exchange-traded products, including many ETF options, already trade until 4:15 p.m. as part of regular hours, so the new afternoon session changes nothing for them. And Cboe's proprietary index options, such as SPX, VIX, XSP and RUT, have their own much longer schedule: Global Trading Hours from 8:15 p.m. to 9:25 a.m. and a Curb session from 4:15 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.

The sessions also follow the equity calendar more closely than index options do. The rule states that the morning session for equity options will not run on a holiday, unlike GTH for index options, and there is no Curb session on holidays either. On early-close days, NYSE American's rules shift its late session to the 15 minutes after the shortened close, such as 1:00 p.m. to 1:15 p.m.

What order rules apply in the pre-market and post-market option sessions?

Market orders are not allowed. The SEC order records that users cannot submit market orders in equity options during either extended session on Cboe, the same restriction that already applies to index options in GTH and Curb, and NYSE American's approved rules exclude both market and stop orders from its early and late sessions. In practice, that means every order in these windows needs a limit price.

Session eligibility is set on each order. Cboe members can mark an order for all sessions, for regular hours only, or for regular hours plus the afternoon Curb session, so an order marked regular-hours-only will not execute at 7:45 a.m. or 4:05 p.m. The morning session opens through an auction: orders can queue from 7:15 a.m., 15 minutes before trading begins, and routing to other exchanges is available so that orders are not traded through a better price elsewhere.

Prices printed in these sessions also carry less weight than regular-hours trades. Cboe states that trades in the GTH and Curb sessions will not be eligible as the last sale and will not count toward the daily high and low. Separately, Cboe's rules require member firms to give customers a specific risk disclosure before they trade in these sessions, including the point that the underlying stock may not be trading in its regular session at the time.

What is still unclear for retail traders?

The biggest open question is the first trading day. None of the SEC orders sets a replacement for the July 13, 2026 target, so until an exchange announces a date, any start date you see should be treated as unconfirmed. The exchanges also need to publish the classes that will actually trade, which may differ from the names Cboe anticipated in May.

Broker access is the second unknown. Exchange approval allows member firms to route orders into the new sessions, but it does not oblige any broker to offer them, and brokers can set narrower hours, order types and eligibility than the exchange permits. If your platform will not accept an options order at 7:45 a.m., the limit comes from the broker, not from the exchange rule. The same logic that makes stock pre-market orders sit unfilled applies here; hi2morrow's guide to why premarket orders do not fill explains how limit prices and thin liquidity interact.

Alexander Styopin's professional view: the most valuable part of this change is the 4:00–4:15 p.m. window, not the morning session. Many large companies report earnings right after the close, and for the first time a trader holding shares will be able to adjust an options hedge in the minutes after the headline instead of waiting until the next morning. The trap is pricing. With fewer market makers active and the stock itself trading thinly after hours, option spreads can be wide, and a limit order set from a 3:59 p.m. quote may no longer reflect fair value at 4:05 p.m.

Educational material only. Not investment or legal advice. Trading hours, eligible option classes, and order handling can vary by exchange, broker, and account type.

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