Forex session times in Nigeria (WAT), and the best pairs to trade

Updated 18 October 2026 · 6 min read

The forex market is open 24 hours from Monday to Friday, but it is not equally busy all day. Price moves most when the big financial centres are open. Here are the sessions in Nigerian time (West Africa Time, WAT, which is UTC+1 all year).

Session times in WAT

Nigeria doesn’t change its clocks, but London, New York and Sydney do. That is why the times shift by an hour twice a year.

Exact switch dates: the UK and Europe change clocks on the last Sundays of March and October; the US on the second Sunday of March and the first Sunday of November; Sydney on the first Sundays of October and April. For a week or two in March and in October/November the times can be off by an hour.

Good news for Nigerian traders

The busiest hours of the day, the London morning and the London–New York overlap, fall in the Nigerian working day and early evening. You don’t have to stay up all night to trade the best liquidity.

Which pairs move in which session

• Tokyo (early morning in Nigeria): USDJPY, AUDUSD, NZDUSD, AUDJPY. Often quieter, with ranges that London later breaks.
• London (morning to afternoon): EURUSD, GBPUSD, EURGBP, GBPJPY, EURJPY, USDCHF. The London open is one of the most active hours of the day.
• London + New York overlap (afternoon): EURUSD, GBPUSD, USDCAD, gold (XAUUSD) and US indices. Most US news, such as NFP and CPI, comes out at the start of the New York session, around 1:30 or 2:30 pm WAT.
• Late New York (evening): volume fades; spreads often widen around the daily close at 10 or 11 pm WAT.

Practise one session at a time

A good way to learn a session is to trade the same hours day after day. In PlayBack Forex, start a PlayBack a little before the London open (8 or 9 am WAT) on any past day, trade the session, then jump to the next day and do it again. Ten London opens in one evening teach you more than ten weeks of waiting for them live.