Which payment rails are open right now?

How the board works

Each rail is judged in its operator's time zone: US Eastern for the Federal Reserve, central European time for TARGET and UK time for CHAPS, Bacs and Faster Payments. For each one the board checks whether today is a settlement day on its calendar, and if it isn't, whether that's a weekend or a named holiday:

• US rails follow the Federal Reserve's holidays, such as Thanksgiving.
• Euro rails follow the TARGET closing days: 1 January, Good Friday, Easter Monday, 1 May, and 25 and 26 December.
• UK rails follow the bank holidays in England and Wales, including substitute days.

Where the operator publishes opening hours and cut-offs (Fedwire, Same Day ACH, CHAPS and Bacs), the board also says whether the rail is inside its window right now. Elsewhere it stays at the level of the day, and your bank's cut-off decides whether a payment counts for today. "Sent now" uses the same rules as the payment arrival calculator.

The weekend gap

A stablecoin payment and a bank payment run on different clocks. A stablecoin transfer is final in seconds to minutes, depending on the network, at any hour. A payout to a bank account then waits for that bank's rail. So USDT sent to you on a Saturday is yours on Saturday. Getting it into a sterling bank account is a second payment, and the rail it uses decides when it lands:

• By CHAPS: Monday at the earliest. CHAPS settles each payment the same day, on UK working days, if your bank sends it before its cut-off. Saturday and Sunday aren't UK working days, so the payout waits for Monday, or for Tuesday after a bank holiday Monday.
• By Faster Payments: the same day. Faster Payments run every day of the year. Funds are usually available almost at once, but a payment can take up to two hours.
• By Bacs: Wednesday at the earliest. Bacs runs a three-day cycle: submitted on day one, processed on day two and credited on day three, counting UK working days only. A file sent on a Saturday starts its cycle on Monday.

The gap isn't in the stablecoin; it's in the rail the payout uses. The same goes for dollars and euros. Fedwire and ACH wait for a Federal Reserve business day, while FedNow runs every day where both banks use it. A SEPA credit transfer waits for a TARGET day, while SEPA Instant settles through the weekend. Size matters too: Faster Payments allows up to £1 million per payment, and each bank sets lower limits of its own, so a larger payment usually goes by CHAPS and waits for a working day.

Align pays sterling by Faster Payments, so a GBP payout converted from USDT or USDC in an Align balance usually arrives within moments, at any hour, weekends included. Align isn't a bank, and pricing is by quote. The payout pages for USDT to GBP and USDC to GBP cover the details.

Published hours

Opening hours and cut-offs, from each operator's own page, in its local time. The board uses these to say whether a rail is inside its window.

• The Federal Reserve plans to extend Fedwire to 22 hours a day, six days a week, no earlier than 2028.
• FedACH has three Same Day ACH submission deadlines, 10:30, 14:45 and 16:45 ET, which settle at 13:00, 17:00 and 18:00 ET.
• The Bank of England plans to open CHAPS at 01:30 instead of 06:00 from September 2027, subject to confirmation with direct participants.
• T2, the Eurosystem's settlement system, is open Monday to Friday. On the ECB's operating schedule, customer payments must be in by 17:00 and interbank payments by 18:00. SEPA credit transfers clear through other systems with cut-offs of their own, so the board keeps euro rails at the level of the day.
• Every day: FedNow has a 24-hour business day and runs 24x7x365, the Faster Payment System is available day and night, 365 days a year, and SEPA Instant settles through TIPS, which runs 24/7/365.

SWIFT, standard ACH and SEPA credit transfers have no single published window that fits every bank, so for those, check your bank's cut-off.

Calendars, guides and payouts

• Holiday calendars for 2027: Fedwire and FedACH, TARGET (T2) and CHAPS, Bacs and Faster Payments.
• The rails compared: Faster Payments, CHAPS and Bacs, ACH, Fedwire and FedNow and SEPA Instant and SWIFT.
• Stablecoin to bank payouts: USDT to GBP, USDC to GBP, USDT to EUR, USDC to EUR, EURC to EUR, USDT to USD and USDC to USD.
• The day a payment sent on any date should arrive: payment arrival calculator.

A guide from each rail's published rules, hours and holidays, not a guarantee. Banks set their own cut-offs and processing days and can hold a payment for checks.