The Forex Market: Size, Players, Sessions and Rules, With the Latest BIS Figures

The forex market, or foreign exchange market, is where currencies are exchanged for one another: a bank buying yen for a client, a company paying a supplier in euros, a fund hedging its foreign shares, a trader betting on EUR/USD. There is no central exchange. Trades happen over the counter, between banks, dealers and their clients, around the clock on weekdays: our hourly EUR/USD bars run without a break from 21:00 UTC on Sunday to the hour that starts at 20:00 UTC on Friday.

How big the forex market is

The reference measure is the Triennial Survey of the Bank for International Settlements, run with central banks every three years. Its preliminary results, published September 30, 2025, put trading at “$9.6 trillion per day in April 2025, up 28% from 2022” (BIS press release, September 30, 2025). The final statistical annex gives $9.51 trillion a day on a net-net basis (BIS Triennial Survey 2025, statistical annex, Table 1, PDF).

Shares are our computations from the BIS Table 1, on the $9.51 trillion total. Spot is what most retail traders mean by forex: an exchange of currencies for immediate delivery. Forwards fix a rate today for a later date, and FX swaps combine a spot and a forward in opposite directions; together they were 60.6% of turnover in April 2025 (42.2% plus 18.4%). Currency futures trade on futures exchanges and are not part of this survey of over-the-counter trading.

Who trades, which currencies, and where

The market is made by banks and financial institutions; trades reported as retail-driven were about $242 billion a day, 2.5% of the total. The retail line is a separate "of which" item of the BIS table, counted across all counterparties, not a part of the non-financial customers line above it. The U.S. dollar was on one side of 89.1% of all trades, the euro of 28.5%, the yen of 16.9% and the pound of 10.2%; since every trade has two currencies, the shares of all currencies add up to 200%. By location, on the net-gross basis of the final Table 1, sales desks in the United Kingdom, the United States, Singapore and Hong Kong handled 75.2% of trading, with the United Kingdom alone at 37.8%; the BIS analysis page gave 75% and 38%, and described the shares of the United Kingdom and the United States as largely unchanged from three years earlier, with Singapore as the notable exception among the major centers (BIS, Triennial Survey 2025, FX turnover analysis).

How to read a forex quote

A pair such as EUR/USD 1.1650 means that one euro, the base currency, costs 1.1650 U.S. dollars, the quote currency. The dealer shows two prices: the bid, at which you can sell, and the ask, at which you can buy; the gap is the spread, your cost on each round trip (see bid and ask). In the EUR/USD prices on this page, a pip is the fourth decimal, 0.0001. Trade sizes are counted in lots, explained in lot size in forex. U.S. rules set the deposit a dealer must hold by currency: the CFTC rule speaks of major currency pairs and leaves the list to the NFA, which sets 2% for transactions in ten listed currencies and 5% for other transactions, as the next section shows. The deposit a dealer holds against a position is the margin; when losses eat into it, the dealer can ask for more or close the position, the margin call described in cash account vs. margin account.

Forex rules for U.S. retail traders

A 2% deposit means a maximum leverage of 50 to 1 in the ten listed currencies (1 divided by 2%), and 5% means 20 to 1 on other transactions; for U.S. stocks, the 50% of Regulation T means 2 to 1 at purchase (17 CFR 5.9, eCFR; NFA Financial Requirements, Section 12; FINRA, Regulation T filings). Higher leverage offered by firms outside the United States is compared in 1:500 vs. 1:200 leverage and, for small accounts, in the best leverage for a small account.

Forex trading sessions: when EUR/USD moves

Forex trades around the clock, but not with the same activity at every hour. We measured it on our hourly EUR/USD bars from September 20 to October 23, 2026: 600 hours, 25 trading days, 5 weeks. The rule: for each hour, the range between its high and its low in pips; then the median per time window. Sessions are a convention, taken here as 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. local time in Tokyo, London and New York; the whole window was in summer time, so London is 07:00 to 16:00 UTC and New York 12:00 to 21:00 UTC. The Tokyo window is cut at the London open so the windows do not overlap.

The London and New York overlap had the widest hourly ranges, and the single most active hour was 12:00 UTC, with a median of 17.7 pips. The weekly figures show how much the ranking holds: the overlap led London alone in 4 of the 5 weeks, while Tokyo and New York alone traded places from week to week. This is one pair, five weeks and one season; it does not measure spreads, which our data do not contain, and other pairs keep other hours. On these bars the New York afternoon, after London closes, had about half the overlap's range. A strategy built on the London open is described in the London breakout strategy.

Stock market vs. forex

The NYSE gives its core trading session as “9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. ET” (NYSE, Holidays and trading hours). Neither market is the better one in general. Forex offers long hours and high leverage, which is also what makes losses fast; stocks offer a choice of companies and lower leverage. Whether forex costs less to trade than stocks cannot be checked here: we have no spread data, and costs depend on the dealer and the pair. The stock side is measured in blue chip stocks vs. the S&P 500.

Who trades forex, and how to start

• Banks and dealers make the prices and trade among themselves: 46.7% of turnover in April 2025.
• Funds and other financial institutions hedge and invest abroad; hedge funds and proprietary trading firms were 8.0%.
• Companies pay and receive foreign currency: non-financial customers were 4.6%.
• Retail traders trade through a dealer; see retail trader.

To start: open a demo account first (see the best paper trading apps), check the dealer's registration with the CFTC, as its advisory recommends, fix your risk per trade before choosing a lot size (see position size), and read forex trading indicators for the tools. The end of gold convertibility in 1971 is told in fiat money, and other markets are compared in asset classes.