Options Expiration Calendar

Monthly expiration dates by year

Every monthly expiration is the third Friday, so the whole calendar is known years ahead. Below are the full monthly schedules, with any Good Friday shift already applied. The table above stays live from today's date; these are the fixed dates for planning further out.

US market holidays and early closes

The expiration date is only half the calendar. The other half is which days the market is actually open between now and then — because theta keeps running over a long weekend while you have no way to roll, close or adjust. Two cycles of the same length are not the same trade: 2026-02-20 to 2026-03-20 and 2026-12-18 to 2027-01-15 are both 28 calendar days, but the first gives you 20 trading sessions and the second only 18. Same DTE, 2 fewer chances to act. The Trading days column in the table at the top of this page counts them for every upcoming expiration.

Below are the scheduled closures. A closed day is a full holiday with no session at all. An early close is a 1:00 p.m. ET finish — the market is open, which is exactly why it catches people out: liquidity thins hours before the bell and spreads widen, so a half-day is a poor day to open or repair a position.

One quirk worth knowing before you assume a year is missing a row: New Year's Day is the single holiday that is not moved. Every other fixed date shifts to the Friday before when it lands on a Saturday, but when 1 January falls on a Saturday the market simply does not take it — 31 December stays a full trading day. That is why some years above list ten closures and others nine.

Every date above is computed from the exchange's own rules, not fetched — so it is available for any future year. The rules are checked on every build against a frozen manifest of 6,290 real trading sessions from 2002 to 2026. What no rule can produce is an unscheduled closure: the market has shut for a hurricane and for state funerals, six times in those 25 years, and nothing can predict the seventh.

How expiration dates work

US-listed equity options settle on a fixed calendar. The monthly series for any stock expires on the third Friday of the month — take the first Friday and add two weeks. Because it is a rule rather than a published schedule, every monthly date is known years ahead. Weekly options, where they are listed, expire on most of the other Fridays; they work the same way but have a shorter life and decay faster.

The one exception is a holiday. If the third Friday — or any expiration Friday — falls on a market holiday, the option expires on the previous trading day. The only US market holiday that can land on a Friday is Good Friday, so in those years (2025 is one) the affected expiration shifts to the Thursday before. This page computes Good Friday and applies that shift for you.

Why the date matters for your trade

• Time decay accelerates near expiration. The fewer days remain, the faster an option bleeds value — a weekly and a monthly at the same strike behave very differently.
• Liquidity clusters on the monthly. The third-Friday series usually has the tightest spreads and the most strikes, which is why most income sellers anchor to it.
• Events inside the window change everything. An earnings date before your expiration is the single most important thing to check — see the expected move the market is pricing in.
• Assignment happens at expiration. An in-the-money short option is assigned over the expiration weekend — plan the exit before the day arrives.

Frequently asked questions

Educational tool only — not financial advice. Expiration dates follow the standard US third-Friday rule with the Good Friday adjustment; confirm a specific contract's expiry with your broker before trading.