Nifty and Bank Nifty Expiry Day: Schedule, Rules, and What Traders Need to Know
Nifty weekly expiry demands precision. Use these 5 rules to handle IV crush, manage pin risk around ATM strikes, and exit positions at the right time.
Nifty 50 weekly options now expire every Tuesday after the National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) shifted the weekly expiry day from Thursday to Tuesday with effect from 1 September 2025. Bank Nifty weekly options were discontinued by NSE in November 2024, leaving only Bank Nifty monthly options, which expire on the last Tuesday of every month. The Sensex weekly contract continues to expire every Thursday on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE).
When is Nifty expiry day?
Nifty 50 has two types of options expiry. The weekly expiry is every Tuesday. The monthly expiry is the last Tuesday of every month. If a Tuesday is a stock-market holiday, the expiry shifts to the previous working day.
The Tuesday weekly expiry has been in force since 1 September 2025. Before that date, Nifty weekly options expired every Thursday. NSE moved the day after the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) directed the exchanges to spread weekly expiries across the week to ease end-of-week volume concentration.
When is Bank Nifty expiry day?
Bank Nifty now has only monthly options. The monthly Bank Nifty contract expires on the last Tuesday of every month. As of this writing, no Bank Nifty weekly options series is open on NSE. Only the monthly series trades.
Full index expiry calendar
| Index | Exchange | Weekly expiry | Monthly expiry |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nifty 50 | NSE | Every Tuesday | Last Tuesday of the month |
| Bank Nifty | NSE | Discontinued (Nov 2024) | Last Tuesday of the month |
| FINNIFTY | NSE | Discontinued (Nov 2024) | Last Tuesday of the month |
| MIDCPNIFTY | NSE | Discontinued (Nov 2024) | Last Tuesday of the month |
| Sensex | BSE | Every Thursday | Last Thursday of the month |
| Bankex | BSE | Discontinued (Nov 2024) | Last Thursday of the month |
The table reflects the position after the November 2024 SEBI direction that limited weekly options to one benchmark index per exchange. NSE picked Nifty 50 as its weekly. BSE picked Sensex as its weekly. All other indices retain only their monthly contracts.
Why the NSE moved the Nifty weekly expiry
SEBI issued a circular in October 2024 to address risks linked to the heavy concentration of options activity on the weekly expiry day. The market regulator pointed to two concerns. First, the bunching of trades on Thursdays raised systemic risk. Second, short-tenor options on the expiry day saw extreme price swings that hurt retail traders.
NSE responded by limiting weekly options to Nifty 50 and shifting the expiry from Thursday to Tuesday. BSE kept its Sensex weekly on Thursday. The result is one weekly expiry day per exchange, spaced across the week.
What happens on expiry day
Three things define a typical expiry day. First, implied volatility (IV) falls sharply as time value drains away — this is called IV crush. Second, the index often pins near a strike where the most open interest sits — a level known as max pain. Third, open interest in the expiring series rolls off as traders close or transfer positions into the next series.
Price action on expiry day can look unusually sharp around the close. Small index moves cause large option premium moves because most contracts are at-the-money or near-the-money. Traders new to expiry day often misread these moves as trend signals when they are mostly a result of time decay.
Weekly vs monthly expiry
The two contracts behave differently. Weekly options have low time value left even at the start of the week and are more sensitive to small index moves. Monthly options have higher time value, broader open interest across strikes, and tighter bid-ask spreads on the higher-volume strikes.
Long-position traders often prefer monthly contracts because the time decay is slower. Intraday traders often prefer weekly contracts because the lower premium allows larger position sizes at the same risk capital.
Holiday adjustments
If a Tuesday is an exchange holiday, the Nifty weekly expiry shifts to the previous working day. The same rule applies to the monthly expiry. NSE publishes the official holiday list and any expiry-day shift through a circular on its website at the start of each calendar year.