When is the COT report released?
The schedule, the holiday rule, and what "as of" actually means.
The CFTC publishes the Commitments of Traders report every Friday at 3:30 p.m. Eastern Time, with positions recorded as of the preceding Tuesday's close. That three-day gap exists for compilation and review of the filings the data is built from.
The regular weekly rhythm
| Day | What happens |
|---|---|
| Tuesday | Snapshot date - all positions in the report are as of this close |
| Wednesday–Thursday | CFTC compiles and reviews reportable-position filings |
| Friday 3:30 p.m. ET | Report published (flat files and the CFTC public-data API) |
The holiday rule
When a U.S. federal holiday falls in the cycle, the CFTC delays publication rather than skipping a week: the snapshot stays a Tuesday, and the release moves to the following business day - most often the Monday after, when the holiday was a Friday, or a Tuesday-snapshot shift when the holiday was a Monday or Tuesday. The CFTC publishes its own list of adjusted dates for the year on its release-schedule page - that list, not the weekly rule of thumb, is authoritative for holiday weeks.
How fast the data lands here
FuturesBench watches both of the CFTC's publication channels - the flat files at cftc.gov and the CFTC's public data API - beginning a few minutes before the scheduled release, and publishes as soon as either carries the new report date, timed against the CFTC's own file timestamps. In practice the update is live here within about a minute of the drop; several well-known COT sites update hours later, which matters if your process runs Friday afternoon.
2026 holiday-shifted release dates
The table below applies the regular rule - release Friday 3:30 p.m. ET, slipping to the next business day when a U.S. federal holiday falls Monday–Friday of the release week - to every affected week of 2026. It is a projection from that rule, not the CFTC's calendar; the CFTC's own release-schedule page is authoritative, and the Commission occasionally departs from the pattern.
| Report date (Tuesday) | Normal release | Projected shifted release | Reason |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dec 30, 2025 | Fri Jan 2, 2026 | Mon Jan 5, 2026 | New Year's Day (Thu Jan 1) |
| Jan 20, 2026 | Fri Jan 23 | Mon Jan 26 | Martin Luther King Jr. Day (Mon Jan 19) |
| Feb 17, 2026 | Fri Feb 20 | Mon Feb 23 | Washington's Birthday (Mon Feb 16) |
| Mar 31, 2026 | Fri Apr 3 | No shift | Good Friday (Apr 3) - CME is closed, but Good Friday is not a federal holiday; the CFTC follows the federal calendar, so the release stays Friday |
| May 26, 2026 | Fri May 29 | Mon Jun 1 | Memorial Day (Mon May 25) |
| Jun 16, 2026 | Fri Jun 19 | Mon Jun 22 | Juneteenth (Fri Jun 19) |
| Jun 30, 2026 | Fri Jul 3 | Mon Jul 6 | Independence Day (Sat Jul 4, observed Fri Jul 3) |
| Sep 8, 2026 | Fri Sep 11 | Mon Sep 14 | Labor Day (Mon Sep 7) |
| Nov 24, 2026 | Fri Nov 27 | Mon Nov 30 | Thanksgiving (Thu Nov 26) |
| Dec 22, 2026 | Fri Dec 25 | Mon Dec 28 | Christmas (Fri Dec 25) |
Columbus Day (Mon Oct 12) and Veterans Day (Wed Nov 11) are also federal holidays; under the same rule the reports dated Oct 13 and Nov 10, 2026 would shift to Mon Oct 19 and Mon Nov 16 respectively. Check the CFTC calendar for the dates it actually publishes. All other 2026 weeks follow the regular Friday rhythm.
Reading a release the moment it lands
- Weekly movers - the largest position changes across every market, one page.
- Extremes - markets whose 3-year COT index just hit the edge of its range.
- All markets - every market page updates in the same release pass, together with its CSV/JSON download.