In futures markets, an expiration date is the contract-specific date associated with the expiry of a particular listed contract month. In this glossary, the term is used in that futures-market sense. It should not be treated as a universally standardized exchange event: depending on the product and the terminology used by an exchange or data source, “expiration” may coincide with the last trading day or may appear alongside separately defined dates for termination of trading, final settlement, notice and delivery.
The operationally precise date is therefore the event identified in the contract specification. Last Trading Day is the date on which trading in that contract month ceases. Final settlement may be determined on that day or later under the product’s rules, while a physically delivered contract can have notice and delivery procedures on a different schedule. Expiration Date should not be used as a substitute for those more specific dates unless the applicable rules make them coincide.
Why expiry can matter before the final trade
For cash-settled futures, positions remaining through the expiry process are ultimately resolved through the contract’s final settlement mechanism. For physically delivered futures, delivery exposure can arise earlier. In some deliverable contracts, First Notice Day occurs before Last Trading Day, so a long position can become eligible for delivery assignment while the contract is still tradeable. A trader seeking only price exposure may therefore need to offset or roll before the notice period rather than simply waiting for trading to end.
The contract month does not determine the date
There is no universal calendar rule for futures expiry. The named contract month is a contract label, not a reliable shortcut for the day on which trading ends, and some futures cease trading before their named contract month even begins. The defensible approach is to use the current official contract specification or product calendar and identify the exact event required for the task. The same discipline matters in historical research and automated roll rules: substituting a generic expiry convention for the actual last-trade, settlement or notice schedule can create incorrect timestamps, false holding periods or unintended delivery exposure.