Korean Stock Market Hours: Regular Session, Call Auctions, After-Hours and the New After-Market (October 2026)

The trading day, hour by hour

The Korean stock trading day has stretched from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. since the alternative trading system Nextrade opened in March 2025 and the Korea Exchange opened its after-market on 14 September 2026. But matching rules and participants differ by time slot, and which venue can trade a given stock also depends on the time. Below is the basic timetable for the Korea Exchange (KOSPI and KOSDAQ) and Nextrade as of October 2026. It is also worth checking which venue your broker's app routes orders to.

• 08:00–08:50 Nextrade pre-market
• 08:30–08:40 Korea Exchange pre-session trading at the previous close
• 08:30–09:00 Korea Exchange opening call auction
• 09:00–15:30 regular session (Nextrade main market 09:00:30–15:20)
• 15:20–15:30 Korea Exchange closing call auction
• 15:40–16:00 Korea Exchange post-session trading at the closing price
• 15:40–20:00 Nextrade after-market
• 16:00–20:00 Korea Exchange after-market (from 14 September 2026)

The regular session and call auctions

The Korea Exchange regular session opens at 9:00 a.m. and closes at 3:30 p.m. Orders arriving between 8:30 and 9:00 a.m. are not matched immediately; they are collected and matched at a single price at 9:00 to set the open, and orders between 3:20 and 3:30 p.m. are collected the same way to set the close. Korean investors often call these windows 'simultaneous quotes'; formally they are single-price auctions. Between 9:00 and 3:20 p.m., trading is continuous, with trades executing as soon as bids and offers meet. So the open and close on a Korean daily candle are the results of single-price matching, and during the last ten minutes the indicative price on screen keeps changing until it is fixed all at once at 3:30. Orders such as the conditional limit order, which turns into a market order in the closing auction, assume this structure.

Closing-price trading before and after the session

There are also windows outside the regular session where trading happens only at a fixed price. From 8:30 to 8:40 a.m. you can trade only at the previous day's close, and from 3:40 to 4:00 p.m. only at that day's close. Because the price is fixed, orders fill in the order they arrive, and nothing fills without a matching order on the other side. These windows are used when you specifically want the previous close, or want to settle a position at the day's close after the market shuts. With the price fixed, they barely affect candle shapes, though their volume can be counted.

After-session trading changed on 14 September 2026

On 14 September 2026 the Korea Exchange opened an after-market from 4:00 to 8:00 p.m. Before that, it ran an after-hours single-price session from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. that collected orders every ten minutes and matched them at one price, within ±10% of that day's close. The after-market replaced it with continuous matching, as in the regular session. Market orders are not accepted, only limit orders; the price limit is the same ±30% of the previous close as in the regular session, and volatility interruptions still apply. Market-wide circuit breakers and sidecars, however, do not operate in this session, and ETFs and ETNs do not trade. Corporate disclosures are still accepted only until 6:00 p.m., so news that emerges later has to be checked in the next day's filings. On the first day, volatility interruptions were reported to trigger far more often than in the regular session, mostly in small and mid-cap stocks. The Korea Exchange's 7 a.m. pre-market has been postponed to the end of 2027.

• Hours: 4:00 to 8:00 p.m., continuous matching
• Orders: limit orders only
• Price limit: ±30% of the previous close; volatility interruptions apply
• Excluded: ETFs and ETNs; no circuit breakers or sidecars

Reading it alongside Nextrade

Nextrade is an alternative trading system that only matches trades, with no listing function, and began trading on 4 March 2025. It runs a pre-market from 8:00 to 8:50 a.m., a main market from 9:00:30 a.m. to 3:20 p.m. and an after-market from 3:40 to 8:00 p.m., and does not match trades around the Korea Exchange's opening and closing auctions. It trades only some listed stocks, revised each quarter. During regular hours the same stock trades on both venues at once, so brokers use smart order routing (best execution) to split orders toward the better price. When placing pre- or post-session orders, check on the order screen which venue the order goes to and whether that stock trades at that hour. Whether a chart combines both venues' trades is covered in the guide on Korea's alternative trading system and longer hours.

Price limits, tick sizes and settlement

Korean stocks can move no more than ±30% from the previous close in a day (since 15 June 2015), and if a stock moves sharply in a short time, a volatility interruption switches it to single-price matching for two minutes. Order prices must be in tick sizes that depend on the share price; since a 2023 overhaul, KOSPI and KOSDAQ use the same table. After a trade, cash and shares actually change hands on the third business day counting the trade date (T+2), so sale proceeds cannot be withdrawn at once, and to receive a dividend you must buy at least two business days before the record date.

• Under 2,000 won: 1 won
• 2,000 to under 5,000 won: 5 won
• 5,000 to under 20,000 won: 10 won
• 20,000 to under 50,000 won: 50 won
• 50,000 to under 200,000 won: 100 won
• 200,000 to under 500,000 won: 500 won
• 500,000 won and above: 1,000 won

Holidays and days with different hours

The market is closed on weekends and public holidays, on Workers' Day (1 May), and on the last day of the year (31 December). The first trading day of the year customarily opens at 10:00 a.m. because of the opening ceremony, and on the day of the national college entrance exam the open and close have been pushed back an hour to ease test-takers' travel. Some closures, such as election days and temporary holidays, vary year to year. Nextrade closes or changes hours on the same days, so checking both venues' annual holiday notices at the start of the year saves trouble. US stocks have their own holidays and hours, and their Korean time shifts with daylight saving, so see the guide on US stock market hours as well.

Checking with this site's tools

The Global Markets & FX at a Glance tool shows current values for 36 items, including 15 indexes such as KOSPI and KOSDAQ plus currencies and rates, along with which markets are open right now in Korean time. My Stock Board lets you mix Korean and US watchlist stocks and shows open/closed status and the time stamp of each price, and the Stock Multi Chart puts Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and US indexes side by side on one screen. These tools' Korean quotes come from Yahoo Finance via the site's server, so they run about 20 minutes late and do not include Nextrade trades or pre- and post-session trading. Use the World Clock to check overseas market times.

Limits and disclaimer

The timetable in this guide is as of October 2026 and can change with exchange rule amendments, market conditions and broker systems. Before placing real orders, check the Korea Exchange and Nextrade notices and your broker's trading-hours information. Pre- and post-session windows have thin volume, so prices can jump and orders may not fill. This guide explains the system; it does not recommend trading at any particular time and is not investment advice.