COT Report Release Schedule 2026: Day & Time

The countdown at the top of this page shows the exact moment of the next release. Normally it's the upcoming Friday at 3:30 PM Eastern Time, but if a US federal holiday falls on the Wednesday, Thursday or Friday of that week, the release moves to the next business day — usually the following Monday.

The CFTC uses the three days between the Tuesday close-of-business snapshot and the Friday publication to aggregate, validate and anonymize the positioning data.

Every COT report reflects open positions at the close of business on the Tuesday of the reporting week. That Tuesday snapshot is then published three days later, on Friday. On a normal week it is three days old when you read it — six when a holiday moves the release to Monday.

Any US federal holiday (as observed) that falls on the Wednesday, Thursday or Friday after the Tuesday snapshot — in practice New Year's Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas, depending on the weekday they land on. Monday holidays such as Labor Day or Memorial Day come before the snapshot and don't delay it. The list above shows every shift for 2026.

Good Friday is not a US federal holiday — the CFTC publishes on schedule even though US equity markets are closed. Black Friday is different: Thanksgiving falls on the Thursday of that week, so the release always moves to the following Monday.

The "Next release" card above shows the release time converted to your device's local timezone automatically. Eastern Time is UTC-5 in winter (EST) and UTC-4 in summer (EDT).

At 3:30 PM Eastern Time (ET), every Friday. That is 20:30 UTC while the U.S. is on standard time (EST) and 19:30 UTC on daylight saving time (EDT). The "Next release" card above shows the time in your own time zone.

Yes. The CFTC has announced that the COT report will be published twice a week by the end of 2026: positions as of Monday released on Wednesday, positions as of Wednesday released on Friday, both at 3:30 PM ET. Until the switch, one report comes out every Friday with positions as of Tuesday. This schedule will show the new dates as soon as the CFTC applies them.

Two things push a release back. A U.S. federal holiday in the days after the snapshot moves it to a later day (the list above shows every shift for 2026). A lapse in U.S. government funding (a shutdown) stops it altogether: the CFTC publishes no COT reports while it is closed and releases the missed weeks afterwards, on a catch-up schedule it announces. No week is lost: each delayed report still covers its own snapshot date.