The Federal Reserve Board announced on October 9, 2025 that the Reserve Banks will extend Fedwire Funds Service and National Settlement Service operating days to include Sundays and all weekday holidays currently designated as closed. The move adds new days to the Fedwire operating calendar, which has historically been limited to non-holiday weekdays, responding to industry calls for greater settlement availability and aligning with global trends toward extended RTGS operating hours.
Under the new schedule, Fedwire Funds Service will operate 22 hours per day across six days per week, from Sunday through Friday. The National Settlement Service will follow the same daily schedule but close 30 minutes earlier than Fedwire, operating 21.5 hours per day. Saturday remains the only non-operating day. The operating hours within each day remain unchanged, with the existing 21:00 ET to 18:30 ET window carrying over to the newly added days.
The Board expects the Reserve Banks to implement the expansion in 2028 or 2029, allowing sufficient time for industry readiness. The timeline accounts for the completion of technical and operational changes following the Fedwire Funds Service migration to the ISO 20022 message standard, which was finalized with the March 2025 cutover and the July 2025 retirement of the legacy FAIM format. Participation in the expanded operating days will be voluntary for service participants.
The decision followed a formal rulemaking process. On August 21, 2025, the Board published a proposal in the Federal Register seeking public comment on the expansion. The final rule was published on November 17, 2025, reflecting consideration of industry feedback while maintaining the core structure of the proposal.
The expansion addresses a structural limitation in the current Fedwire framework. Major payment systems in other jurisdictions have been moving toward extended settlement hours, with the European Central Bank consulting on extending T2 hours toward near-continuous operations and the Bank of England confirming CHAPS settlement will extend to 1:30 AM by 2027. The Board acknowledged in its announcement that full 22x7x365 operations could provide additional benefits to the payment system, signaling potential further expansion in the future.
For the domestic market, adding Sunday operations has particular significance for settlement of time-critical cross-border transactions, weekend-initiated corporate treasury operations, and support for the growing volume of payments processing outside traditional business hours. The expansion also provides a more robust settlement backbone for FedNow, the Federal Reserve's instant payment service, which already operates around the clock.