Which Order Types Can You Use for Options in Extended Hours?

As of October 13, 2026, a limit order marked for the right session is the main order type the SEC-approved extended-hours option sessions are built around. Cboe, Nasdaq MRX and NYSE American have approval for a 7:30–9:25 a.m. ET morning session and a 4:00–4:15 p.m. ET afternoon session, and NYSE American has scheduled its start for October 19, 2026, pending regulatory effectiveness. Market orders are rejected in all three morning sessions and in the afternoon sessions at Cboe and NYSE American. Nasdaq MRX is the exception, because its rules allow market and stop orders from 4:00 to 4:15 p.m. Stop orders, GTC orders and multi-leg spreads are handled differently on each exchange.

Which order types can you use for stock options in extended hours?

The SEC approved Cboe's extended sessions on May 28, 2026 (Release No. 34-105569), Nasdaq MRX's on June 26 (34-105785) and NYSE American's on August 28 (34-106218). Approval is not a launch. Only NYSE American has a published start date so far, and hi2morrow's guide to the extended trading hours for stock options covers the schedule, the class list and the conditions for starting. Start dates for Cboe and MRX had not been confirmed when this article was written.

The common core is simple. Each exchange expects reduced liquidity and wider spreads in these sessions, so each steers orders toward a limit price. NYSE American's Fact Sheet lists exactly what it will take in both its Early and Late sessions: Limit Day and Limit IOC orders, in routable and non-routable versions, the same two as intermarket sweep orders, and market maker quotes. IOC means immediate-or-cancel, so whatever cannot trade at once is canceled instead of resting in a thin book. Beyond that shared core, the three rulebooks diverge, which is the reason a single "yes or no" answer is usually wrong.

Can you use market and stop orders before 9:30 or after 4:00 p.m.?

Not in the morning, on any of the three exchanges. NYSE American rejects market orders in both sessions and does not initially offer stop or stop-limit orders in either, according to footnote 45 of its approval order and the Fact Sheet. Nasdaq MRX rejects market and stop orders in its Early ETH session, which is the 7:30–9:25 a.m. window. Cboe's order says market orders will not be permitted in either of its sessions, but it does not address stop orders at all. The SEC order for Cboe does not say whether they are allowed, so the answer for Cboe has to come from the exchange's specifications or your broker.

The afternoon is where MRX differs. Its rule says the exchange "will allow Market Orders and Stop Orders during the Extended Close" from 4:00 to 4:15 p.m., because it believes that period "will be more actively quoted." A stop order there is an order that becomes a market order once its stop price is elected. For a trader who placed a stop during the day, this matters. An order marked to participate in the extended session can carry past 4:00 p.m. and trigger in a book that is thinner than it was at 3:55, then execute as a market order. MRX says that members who do not want market and stop orders to persist beyond 4:00 can mark them RTH only.

The contrast with stocks is worth knowing. As hi2morrow's guide to order types in the overnight stock session explains, the overnight stock sessions are also limit-only. The difference in options is that one exchange has deliberately chosen to allow market and stop orders in a short window, and the exchange's reasoning is that the window is more actively quoted than the morning.

Can you trade option spreads and covered calls in extended hours?

It depends on the exchange, and on whether the spread contains stock. NYSE American does not initially offer complex orders in either session, and its Fact Sheet lists "Complex (including COA)" among unsupported order types. COA is the complex order auction. A vertical spread there would have to be sent as separate legs, which carries the risk that one leg fills and the other does not.

Nasdaq MRX takes a narrower approach. Before 9:30 a.m. it rejects only stock-tied complex orders: Stock-Option orders, such as a buy-write that combines shares and a short call, and Stock-Complex orders. The stated reason is that the exchange checks these against the day's high-low range in the underlying stock, and that information is available only from 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. In the 4:00–4:15 window it uses the regular session's range instead. The rule does not exclude option-only complex orders in the morning, and the approval order says complex versions of the exchange's auctions and its Complex Order Risk Protections apply in extended hours. MRX also keeps the right to decide which order types are offered on a class or system basis, so whether an option-only spread works in a given class is something to confirm with the exchange's announcements and your broker rather than assume. For Cboe, the approval order contains no statement on complex orders.

Do GTC orders and other time-in-force instructions carry into extended hours?

Generally they do not, and the details differ. NYSE American does not initially offer good-'til-canceled orders in either session, so the available time-in-force instructions are Day and IOC. Nasdaq MRX went further and removed GTC and GTD from its rulebook altogether to avoid the operational complexity of orders persisting between sessions. A Day order marked All Sessions on MRX expires at 4:15 p.m., while one marked RTH only expires at 4:00 p.m. Cboe's approach is to let an order marked All Sessions carry over and stay actionable across its sessions, whereas one marked RTH-only is not active in the extended ones.

The session marking is what separates all of this. Nasdaq MRX, NYSE American and Cboe each require or support marks that say where an order may trade, and NYSE American rejects an order that carries none. Because this mark decides whether an order works at 7:45 a.m., hi2morrow has a separate walkthrough of what NYSE American approved, including the full list of order types it does not offer, and this article does not repeat it.

What protects your price in a thin pre-market options book?

Less than in the middle of the day, but not nothing. Each approval order says the options Linkage Plan, which prohibits trade-throughs and the display of locked or crossed markets, applies in all sessions. NYSE American's system is designed to prevent trade-throughs at all times and may route orders to other exchanges in the early and late sessions. Cboe says its orders route just as in regular hours. Nasdaq MRX does not route at all in extended hours: every order must be Do-Not-Route, and an order that would trade through another market or lock it is repriced to the national best price and displayed one tick worse.

Price controls from the regular session also continue. NYSE American's Fact Sheet says its limit order protections are the same as in the Core session, with some adjustments to its arbitrage and intrinsic-value checks: they are not applied in the Late session, and in the Early session the reference price is the last sale on any stock exchange rather than the primary market. For Nasdaq MRX, the order says its simple and complex order risk protections apply in the same manner. The morning opening is also guarded: NYSE American's order says an option will not open outside its opening collar.

What is missing matters just as much. Market makers are not obliged to quote in these sessions. Limit-up limit-down pauses and market-wide circuit breakers do not apply to MRX options in extended hours because, by their terms, they apply only in regular trading hours. A regulatory halt in the underlying stock still affects the option: MRX cancels any trade that occurs during such a halt. Cboe says trades in its extended sessions are not last-sale eligible and are not included in the daily high and low, a description the exchange gave the SEC.

What should you check before sending an extended-hours options order?

Start with the plain facts. Which exchange has actually launched, and does it trade your option class? A launch on one exchange does not make the class tradable on another. Then check what your broker supports, because a broker can offer fewer order types than the exchange accepts, and finally check the session mark, along with what happens to the order at 9:25 a.m. or 4:00 p.m. Each exchange also requires member firms to give customers a risk disclosure before the first extended-hours options order, a requirement the approval orders tie to Cboe Rule 9.20, NYSE American Rule 901.2NY(f) and Nasdaq MRX Options 3C Section 9.

Consider a hypothetical class, ABC, that is eligible on NYSE American and Nasdaq MRX. ABC stock closed yesterday at $150, and news at 7:05 a.m. has pushed it to $158 by 7:40 a.m. A trader holds five ABC $155 calls and wants a $4.00 stop. Both exchanges would reject a stop order at 7:42 a.m. The order types NYSE American lists as accepted would be a limit sell for five calls at $6.20 marked for the Early and Core sessions, or a limit IOC at $6.00, which fills immediately or cancels. At 7:50 a.m. the trader wants to sell the $155/$165 vertical as one order. On NYSE American that complex order is not offered, so the options are two separate limit orders, with the risk that one leg fills alone, or waiting for 9:30. A buy-write of 100 ABC shares plus a short call would be rejected on MRX before 9:30 a.m. because there is no day high-low for the stock yet.

Now move to 4:06 p.m., after ABC reports at 4:01 p.m. A market order to sell five calls would be accepted on MRX in its Extended Close and rejected on NYSE American. A stop the trader placed during the day on MRX and marked for the extended session could trigger at 4:06 p.m. and fill as a market order against a wide spread, whereas the same order marked RTH only would have expired at 4:00. If ABC's listing market halts the stock at 4:08 p.m., ABC options would also be halted, and an MRX trade during the regulatory halt would be canceled. All prices here illustrate the rules, not actual trading data.

Alexander Styopin's professional view: the market and stop order rules are the part most likely to surprise someone used to equity habits. A stop on a long call feels like a safety net, yet in these sessions it is either unavailable or, on MRX in the afternoon, becomes a market order into a thin book. I would treat the limit order, its price and its session mark as the whole instruction, and I would not assume a protective order placed during the day will behave the same way after 4:00 p.m.

Educational material only. Not investment or legal advice. Order types, trading hours, 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