Korean Stock Market Trading Hours

Stock investing is the most popular and common of all the investment products we know.
That is why many people are investing in stocks or planning to.
As basic knowledge for investing in stocks, it is good to know the stock market's trading hours.
Let's look at what times of day you can buy and sell stocks.

▪Regular session hours
- Trading hours: 09:00 ~ 15:30
- Price limit: -30% ~ +30%

▪After-hours closing price session (before the open / right after the close)
- Before the open: 08:30 ~ 08:40
- Order price: previous day's closing price only
- After the close: 15:30 ~ 15: 40
- Order price: same day's closing price only

▪After-hours single-price session (2 hours after the close)
- 16:00 ~ 18:00 (trades executed every 10 minutes)
- Price limit: -10% ~ +10% of the day's closing price

Looking at the hours above, you can see that trading is possible until 6 p.m. even outside the regular session.
If you needed to trade that day but couldn't, you can buy and sell stocks using these other sessions.
For reference, stocks that rise or fall sharply during after-hours trading often open the next day largely reflecting that price.
If a stock you own moved up or down in the after-hours single-price market, it is a good idea to study it in advance and respond the next day.

In addition, trading hours change on a few specific days, so it is worth keeping these in mind.
- First trading day of the new year : The opening time changes from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m., and the closing time stays the same.
- College Scholastic Ability Test (Suneung) day : The opening time changes from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m., and the closing time also changes from 15:30 to 16:30.
- The market is closed on the last business day of December every year.

Starting this year, 2025, an alternative trading system (ATS) is newly opening. Until now, stocks have been traded only on Korea Exchange.
Now Korea has one more exchange where stocks can be traded.
The newly opening alternative trading system (ATS) has trading hours from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
As the hours during which we can trade stocks have increased, we can respond more quickly to stock price movements, so it seems worth paying attention to.