NSE and BSE Trading Holidays 2026: The Full Dated Calendar

The Full NSE and BSE Trading Holiday Calendar for 2026

This is the part most articles skip. Below is the dated list of equity segment trading holidays for 2026 that apply to both the NSE and the BSE. On these days the cash market, the equity derivatives (F&O) segment, the currency derivatives segment and the securities lending and borrowing (SLB) segment are all closed. Saturdays and Sundays are weekly holidays and are not repeated in this list. Dates marked with a festival that falls on a fixed lunar date can shift by a day in the official notification, so confirm against the NSE and BSE websites before you trade.

Two practical points about this table. First, Independence Day on 15 August 2026 falls on a Saturday, so it does not cost the market a separate trading session, which is good for the calendar but means there is no extra long weekend that month. Second, on Diwali, 9 November 2026, the regular market is closed but a special one hour Muhurat Trading session is held in the evening, while the following day, 10 November 2026 (Balipratipada), is a full holiday. Always treat the official NSE and BSE circulars as the final word, because the exchanges sometimes adjust a date when a festival straddles two calendar days.

Equity Holidays Are Not the Same as Commodity (MCX) Holidays

A trap that catches many beginners is assuming the whole market shuts on every holiday. It does not. The equity, F&O and currency segments of the NSE and BSE share one holiday list, but the Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX) runs a separate calendar. On several days the equity market is closed while the MCX evening session, which runs until 11:30 PM or 11:55 PM, still trades gold, silver and crude oil. The reverse also happens on a handful of dates.

This matters if you hedge or arbitrage across segments. For example, if you are long a Nifty position and you try to hedge oil exposure using MCX crude oil futures, a day when equities are shut but MCX is open leaves your commodity leg moving with no way to adjust the equity leg until the next session. The clearing and settlement calendar is different too, so funds settlement (pay in and pay out) can lag by a day around clustered holidays. Check the specific exchange and segment, not just a generic India holiday list.

• Equity cash, equity F&O, currency derivatives and SLB on the NSE and BSE follow one combined holiday list.
• MCX commodity derivatives follow a separate holiday list and usually have a morning session and an evening session.
• Settlement holidays (clearing) can differ from trading holidays, which affects when money and shares actually hit your account.
• On most national holidays such as Republic Day and Independence Day, every segment including MCX is fully closed.

How Holidays Shift Weekly and Monthly Expiry

In 2026 the weekly index option expiry schedule is consolidated. Nifty weekly options expire on Tuesday and Sensex weekly options expire on Thursday, following SEBI and exchange rationalisation of expiry days. Bank Nifty no longer has a weekly contract and trades only monthly expiries. The monthly expiry for Nifty is the last Tuesday of the month, and for Sensex it is the last Thursday of the month, unless that day is a holiday.

Here is the rule that actually affects your money: if the scheduled expiry day is a trading holiday, expiry moves to the immediately preceding trading day. So if a Tuesday Nifty expiry collides with a holiday like Dussehra on 20 October 2026, that weekly contract expires on Monday 19 October instead. A trader holding a weekly straddle expecting Tuesday expiry would suddenly find the contract settling a day early, with one less day of time decay than planned. Always re check the contract expiry date in the option chain during any holiday week rather than assuming the usual day.

Worked Example: What a Long Weekend Costs a Nifty Option Buyer

Let us put real numbers on the hidden cost of holidays. These figures are illustrative and chosen to show the mechanics, not a forecast or any promise of returns. Suppose Nifty is trading near 24,000 and you buy one lot of a slightly out of the money weekly 24,200 call. The Nifty lot size is 65. Assume the premium is 80 rupees per share. Your cost to enter is 80 multiplied by 75, which is 6,000 rupees, before charges.

Now assume a three day weekend sits between today and expiry because of a Monday holiday. Long options lose value with time, a force called theta. If theta on this option is roughly 12 rupees per share per calendar day, then across three non trading calendar days the market will price in time decay even though it is closed. When the market reopens, the option can open lower by close to 36 rupees per share purely from time, assuming the index gaps to the same level. That is 36 multiplied by 75, which is 2,700 rupees of paper loss from the calendar alone, with zero adverse move in Nifty. If the index also opens flat, you have lost roughly 45 percent of your premium to the holiday gap.

Now flip the position. If instead you had sold (written) that same 24,200 call as a covered or hedged position, that same time decay works in your favour, and the holiday weekend hands the option seller the three days of theta. This is why disciplined option sellers in India often prefer to hold short premium positions across long weekends, while option buyers either avoid holding long premium over holidays or switch to spreads where one leg offsets the decay of the other. The holiday is not neutral, it is a structural tilt in favour of the seller of time.

How Charges and Taxes Apply Around Holidays

Holidays do not change the charges on a trade, but the clustering of trades before a long break can. Every transaction still attracts Securities Transaction Tax (STT), exchange transaction charges, GST on brokerage and charges, SEBI turnover fees and stamp duty. For options, STT is charged at 0.1 percent on the sell side premium, and for futures at 0.02 percent on the sell side turnover. Discount brokers typically charge a flat brokerage of around 20 rupees per executed order on F&O, so squaring off many positions in a rush before a holiday simply multiplies that flat fee across orders.

On taxation, the calendar around 31 March matters most. Income from intraday equity and from F&O is treated as business income and taxed at your applicable slab rate, not at a flat capital gains rate. By contrast, delivery based equity gains are capital gains: short term capital gains (held up to 12 months) are taxed at 20 percent, and long term capital gains are taxed at 12.5 percent on the amount above 1.25 lakh rupees in a financial year. The settlement holiday calendar around the year end can push a sale executed in late March into a different settlement date, so if you are timing a sale for a particular financial year, confirm both the trade date and the settlement date.

• F&O and intraday equity profits are business income, taxed at your slab rate, and you can claim genuine trading expenses against them.
• Delivery short term capital gains are taxed at 20 percent; long term capital gains at 12.5 percent above the 1.25 lakh annual exemption.
• STT on option premiums is 0.1 percent on the sell side; on futures it is 0.02 percent on the sell side turnover.
• Charges do not pause for holidays, so closing many positions in a pre holiday rush multiplies flat per order brokerage and fixed charges.

Muhurat Trading on Diwali: What It Really Is

On Diwali, the exchanges keep the regular market closed but open a special one hour Muhurat Trading session in the evening, usually announced through a circular a few weeks earlier. In 2026 this falls on 9 November. The session is rooted in tradition, with many investors making a token purchase to mark the start of the Hindu accounting year, Samvat. Trades in this session are real and settle normally.

It is important to be honest about what the session is and is not. It is a symbolic, low volume session, not a strategic opportunity. Liquidity is thin, spreads are wider, and the small sample of past Diwali sessions closing slightly positive is not a reliable edge you can trade on. Any profit or loss you make is taxed exactly like any other trading day, with the same charges and the same STT. Treat Muhurat Trading as a tradition you can participate in with a small, considered position, not as a signal to deploy size.

Liquidity and Volatility Around Holiday Weeks

Trading behaviour genuinely changes around holidays, and understanding the pattern helps you avoid the worst executions. In the session or two before a long break, many traders square off positions to avoid carrying overnight and holiday risk, so volumes thin out and bid ask spreads widen, especially in less liquid stock options and far month contracts. A market order that fills cleanly on a normal Wednesday can suffer noticeable slippage on the afternoon before a holiday.

The reopening session after a long weekend is the mirror image. Orders that accumulated while the market was shut, plus any reaction to global moves over the break, are released at once, which often produces a volatile first 15 to 30 minutes with a wider opening gap than usual. Implied volatility in options frequently rises into a holiday as buyers pay up for protection over the closed days, and can drop sharply when the market reopens and the uncertainty resolves, a move option sellers call volatility crush. Plan entries and exits with this rhythm in mind rather than fighting it.

• Use limit orders rather than market orders in the thin pre holiday session to control slippage.
• Expect a wider than normal gap and choppy first half hour when the market reopens after a long weekend.
• Watch implied volatility: it often inflates before a holiday and deflates on reopening, which hurts option buyers and helps sellers.
• Avoid holding large, undefined risk positions across a long weekend unless you have hedged the gap.

A Practical Pre Holiday Checklist

Rather than vague advice, here is a concrete routine to run on the trading day before any holiday. It takes five minutes and prevents the most common and most expensive holiday mistakes.

• Confirm the exact holiday date and which segments are closed (equity, F&O, currency, MCX) on the official NSE and BSE circulars.
• Re check the expiry date of every weekly and monthly contract you hold, because a midweek holiday can pull expiry forward a day.
• For long option positions, calculate the time decay across the closed calendar days and decide whether to exit, roll, or convert to a spread.
• For short option positions, size for the worst plausible reopening gap, not just the theta you expect to collect.
• Place pending limit orders and stop losses with the holiday gap in mind, since a stop loss cannot trigger while the market is shut.
• If you trade across equity and commodity, note any day where one is open and the other is closed, so a hedge does not become one sided.

Sources and Further Reading

Holiday dates, expiry rules, charges and contract specifications change, so always confirm against the primary source before you trade. The authoritative references are NSE India for the equity and F&O holiday list and expiry schedule, BSE India for the Sensex derivatives calendar, the MCX for commodity holidays, and SEBI for regulatory circulars on expiry rationalisation and segment rules. The dated calendar above is for planning; the exchange circular is the final word.

Sources and Further Reading

For authoritative data and further reading on this topic, refer to NSE India, BSE India and SEBI (Securities and Exchange Board of India). Always confirm current rules, rates and contract specifications on the official source before you trade.