US Stock Market Holidays and Early Closes, Fully Explained
— 2026 Edition
US market holidays shift slightly every year. Rather than memorizing dates, learn the rule behind how they're set first — then you only need to glance at a fresh table each year. We walk through 2026's dates as the working example.
How Market Holidays Get Set
The NYSE (New York Stock Exchange) publishes its official holiday calendar every year, and the other major US exchanges, including Nasdaq, follow the same schedule. Most of these overlap with US federal holidays, but a few, like Columbus Day and Veterans Day, are federal holidays where the market opens as usual — so the two lists aren't perfectly identical. Also don't confuse this with regular and pre-market trading hours, which is a separate concept entirely — a market holiday is "a day it's closed," while a trading-hours table is "the schedule for a day it's open."
2026 Market Holidays
Days the US market is fully closed (2026 edition — reconfirm with your broker's notice before actually trading).
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| Holiday | 2026 Date (example) | Rule |
|---|---|---|
| New Year's Day | Thu, Jan 1 | Fixed at January 1 every year |
| Martin Luther King Jr. Day | Mon, Jan 19 | 3rd Monday of January |
| Washington's Birthday (Presidents' Day) | Mon, Feb 16 | 3rd Monday of February |
| Good Friday | Fri, Apr 3 | The Friday right before Easter (moves every year) |
| Memorial Day | Mon, May 25 | Last Monday of May |
| Juneteenth | Fri, Jun 19 | Fixed at June 19 every year |
| Independence Day | Observed Fri, Jul 3 | If July 4 falls on a weekend, observed on the nearest weekday |
| Labor Day | Mon, Sep 7 | 1st Monday of September |
| Thanksgiving | Thu, Nov 26 | 4th Thursday of November |
| Christmas | Fri, Dec 25 | Fixed at December 25 every year |
Early Close — a Different Concept From a Holiday
An Early Close is a day when the regular session does open, but closes earlier than usual (1:00 PM / 13:00 ET). It's easy to confuse with a full holiday, but it's a separately designated set of days. The day before Independence Day, the day after Thanksgiving (Black Friday), and the day before Christmas are the typical early-close days (all confirmed separately by the exchange each year).
Why the Dates Change Every Year
Some holidays have a fixed date — New Year's Day, Juneteenth, and Christmas among them — but holidays defined as "the Nth [weekday] of [month]", like MLK Day, Memorial Day, and Labor Day, land on a different actual date every year. Good Friday moves around an even wider range because it's tied to how Easter is calculated. That's why this article leads with the rule first and treats the table as an illustrative example — that way it stays useful even after the year changes.
Days the Stock Market Is Open but the Bond Market Is Closed
Not every holiday applies identically to the stock and bond markets. US bond-market holidays are set separately by SIFMA (the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association), and on days like Columbus Day (2nd Monday of October) and Veterans Day (November 11), the bond market is closed while the stock market (NYSE, Nasdaq) opens as usual. Conversely, on Good Friday the bond market only runs a shortened half-day while the stock market is fully closed — it's worth remembering that the two markets' calendars don't line up exactly. This is a particularly easy spot to get tripped up when you're also dealing with bond ETFs or Treasury-related products.
What to Watch For When Trading Around a Holiday
- Volume tends to thin out the day before a holiday, which can widen spreads.
- Gaps sometimes appear the day after a holiday, so it's worth double-checking any open orders left over from before the closure.
- Ex-dividend date and settlement date calculations are based on trading days, excluding market holidays — see Ex-Dividend Date and Record Date Explained for more.