You can buy options after hours, but only a narrow set of them. Options on individual stocks stop trading at 4:00 PM Eastern along with the stock exchanges. A short list of heavily traded ETF options stays open an extra 15 minutes, until 4:15 PM. And options on a handful of major indexes, including the S&P 500 (SPX), the Cboe Volatility Index (VIX), Mini-SPX (XSP), and the Russell 2000 (RUT), trade through an overnight session that runs from 8:15 PM to 9:25 AM Eastern. Anything else is a queued order waiting for the morning bell.
Equity Options Close at 4:00 PM
Options on single stocks follow the same clock as the NYSE and Nasdaq: 9:30 AM to 4:00 PM Eastern, Monday through Friday.1New York Stock Exchange. Holidays and Trading Hours When the closing bell rings, exchanges stop matching orders for equity options. There is no after-hours session for a call or put on Apple, Tesla, or any other individual stock.
This matters most around earnings. A company reports at 4:05 PM, the stock jumps 10% in the post-market equity session, and you cannot touch your options position until 9:30 AM the next day. The underlying shares keep trading; the options do not. That overnight gap is a real source of risk for anyone holding single-stock options into news events.
ETF Options That Trade Until 4:15 PM
The Cboe Options Exchange designates certain high-volume ETF options as eligible to trade an extra 15 minutes after the equity close, until 4:15 PM Eastern.2Federal Register. Self-Regulatory Organizations; Cboe Exchange, Inc.; Notice of Filing of a Proposed Rule Change To Amend Rule 5.1(c) (Global Trading Hours) The main ones are options on the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY), the Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ), and the iShares Russell 2000 ETF (IWM).
Those 15 minutes are useful because the equity closing auction often jolts the ETFs that hold those stocks, and the window lets you respond. Liquidity thins as 4:15 approaches, so bid-ask spreads widen compared to earlier in the day. You don’t need special brokerage permissions to trade here, but confirm your platform routes to an exchange that supports the 4:15 close.
Index Options With Nearly 24-Hour Trading
This is where after-hours options trading actually opens up. Cboe’s Global Trading Hours (GTH) session lets options on several major indexes trade through an overnight window that starts at 8:15 PM Eastern and runs until 9:25 AM the following morning.3Cboe Global Markets. U.S. Options Hours and Holidays Eligible products are S&P 500 Index options (SPX), Mini-SPX options (XSP), Cboe Volatility Index options (VIX), and Russell 2000 Index options (RUT).4Cboe Global Markets, Inc. Cboe Launches Nearly 24-Hour Trading in Russell 2000 Index Options
The full daily cycle for these products:
- Regular Trading Hours: 9:30 AM to 4:15 PM Eastern
- Curb session: 4:15 PM to 5:00 PM Eastern
- Global Trading Hours: 8:15 PM to 9:25 AM Eastern the next day
The curb session bridges the regular close and the overnight window, giving traders a buffer before the market goes quiet.5Cboe Global Markets. Cboe Options to Support GTH and Curb Trading of RUT and RUTW The only real dead zone is roughly 5:00 PM to 8:15 PM Eastern. For someone who needs to react to overnight economic data from Asia or Europe, or a geopolitical event at 3:00 AM, these sessions provide a way in without waiting for morning.
The overnight session is not daytime trading in disguise. Spreads widen significantly during GTH because fewer participants are active. A spread that runs a nickel wide during regular hours can balloon to 30 or 40 cents overnight. On smaller positions, that slippage quietly eats returns.
Only Limit Orders Work Overnight
Market orders and stop orders are not supported outside regular trading hours.6Cboe Global Markets, Inc. Cboe Options Exchange 24×5 Trading Frequently Asked Questions You must use limit orders and specify the exact price you’ll accept. The restriction is a safety net: with thin liquidity, a market order could fill at a wildly different price than the screen shows.
Index Options Settle in Cash
SPX, VIX, XSP, and RUT are cash-settled. No shares change hands at expiration; if your SPX call expires in the money, you receive the dollar difference between the strike and the settlement value. That’s a meaningful contrast with physically settled ETF options like SPY, where expiration can leave you holding a large stock position.
What Your Brokerage Will Actually Let You Do
Exchange-level access doesn’t help if your broker doesn’t route to those sessions. Support varies.
Interactive Brokers provides access to Cboe’s overnight GTH session for SPX and related index options, with trading available from 8:15 PM Eastern onward.7Interactive Brokers LLC. Overnight Trading
Robinhood supports extended-hours trading from 7:00 AM to 9:30 AM and 4:00 PM to 8:00 PM Eastern, limit orders only.8Robinhood. Extended-Hours Trading Stop orders placed during those windows queue until the next regular session opens. Robinhood’s 24-hour market for certain stocks and ETFs does not currently extend to options contracts.
If your brokerage doesn’t support extended options sessions and you submit an order at 8:00 PM, the platform queues it. The order waits until the exchange opens the next morning. Most platforms default to limit orders for queued submissions to protect against the price gaps common at the 9:30 AM open. You’ll typically choose between a day order, which expires if unfilled by that session’s close, or a good-til-canceled order that stays active for a set period, often 60 to 90 days depending on the firm.
Risks That Get Worse After Hours
FINRA Rule 2265 requires every brokerage to deliver a risk disclosure before letting you trade outside regular hours.9FINRA. Extended Hours Trading Risk Disclosure The warnings are boilerplate; the risks are real.
- Lower liquidity. Fewer participants mean your order may fill only partially or not at all. An option with healthy daytime volume can be nearly illiquid at midnight.
- Higher volatility. Prices swing more sharply on lower volume, and a single large order can move the market in ways that would barely register during the day.
- Wider spreads. The gap between bid and ask grows when liquidity drops. An extra 20 cents on a spread compounds fast across multiple trades.
Options feel these effects doubly because their prices derive from the underlying. If the underlying index is itself thinly traded overnight, theoretical value is harder to pin down, and the market makers who do participate protect themselves by quoting wider.
Expiration Day Doesn’t Stop at 4:00 PM
Even when you can’t trade, things can still happen to your option after the close on expiration day. The Options Clearing Corporation automatically exercises any expiring option that closes at least $0.01 in the money. The deadline to submit contrary instructions, such as telling your broker not to exercise an in-the-money option, is 5:30 PM Eastern on expiration day.10The Options Industry Council. Options Exercise Most brokerages set their own internal cutoffs earlier, so check your platform’s specific deadline.
The danger zone is pin risk. If a stock closes right near your option’s strike at 4:00 PM, then moves through the strike during after-hours equity trading, the exercise math changes. An option that looked worthless at the close can finish in the money, or one you expected to be exercised can swing out. The holder can submit last-minute exercise or do-not-exercise instructions based on after-hours price moves, which leaves the short side facing unpredictable assignment. That’s where most expiration-day surprises come from, and it’s a strong argument for closing positions before the final hour.
Holiday and Early-Closure Days
The hours above assume a normal trading day. Markets close early several times a year, and options follow. In 2026, the NYSE Group has scheduled early closures on Friday, November 27 and Thursday, December 24, when equity markets close at 1:00 PM Eastern and eligible options close at 1:15 PM Eastern.11Intercontinental Exchange. NYSE Group Announces 2025, 2026 and 2027 Holiday and Early Closings Calendar Full market holidays mean no trading at all.
Shortened sessions trip people up because the GTH overnight session the previous evening may also be affected, and brokerage cutoffs for exercise instructions shift accordingly. If you’re holding expiring options into a holiday week, confirm the exact schedule with both the exchange and your broker rather than assuming the normal timetable applies.