Last updated:
The Forex Factory calendar is a free economic-events calendar. Read it by setting your time zone first, filtering to high-impact (red) news, and comparing the Actual number against the Forecast and Previous once a release hits. The colour of each event — yellow, orange, or red — tells you how much volatility to expect.
Key takeaways
- The Forex Factory calendar is a free, real-time schedule of economic data releases and central-bank events, colour-coded by expected market impact.
- Colour codes signal impact: yellow = low, orange = medium, red = high. Red events (NFP, CPI, rate decisions) move price the most.
- Set your time zone first. The calendar defaults to a US time zone; if yours is wrong, every release time on the page is wrong for you.
- Filter to high-impact only when you want a clean view of the events that actually move your pairs — the folder/impact filter hides the noise.
- Actual vs Forecast vs Previous is the core read: the market reacts to the surprise — how far Actual lands from what was Forecast.
- Use it to prepare for or avoid volatility, not as a signal system. Knowing a red event is due in 20 minutes is a risk-management tool, not an entry trigger.
What is the Forex Factory calendar?
The Forex Factory calendar is a free economic calendar published at forexfactory.com that lists upcoming economic data releases, central-bank meetings, and speeches, sorted by date and time. It is one of the most widely used calendars among retail forex traders because it is fast, filterable, and free.
Each row is a single economic event — a Non-Farm Payrolls release, a CPI print, an interest-rate decision, a PMI figure. The calendar tags every event with the country it affects, the time it is scheduled, and a colour that estimates how strongly it is likely to move the market.
The calendar does not tell you which way to trade. It tells you what is scheduled, when, and how big — so you can plan around it. That distinction matters: it is a preparation tool, not a strategy. If you want the wider context of how scheduled data drives price, our guide to how to predict forex price movements covers the fundamentals side.
You do not need an account to use it. The calendar loads in any browser, updates in real time as numbers are released, and works the same on desktop and mobile. For the full toolkit that sits alongside it — the market, news, and session tools — see our Forex Factory trading tools guide.
What the colour codes mean
The colour of each event is the fastest read on the whole calendar. It is a folder icon (Forex Factory calls them “folders”) coloured by the site’s own estimate of how much volatility the release usually causes. Learn these three colours and you can scan a week in seconds.
| Colour | Impact level | What to expect | Example events |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yellow | Low | Minimal price reaction; often ignored | Minor sentiment surveys, low-tier speeches |
| Orange | Medium | Noticeable moves, usually short-lived | PMI, retail sales, second-tier data |
| Red | High | Sharp, fast moves and wider spreads | NFP, CPI, interest-rate decisions, FOMC |
Red is the one that matters most. A red folder means the release has a track record of moving price hard and fast — think Non-Farm Payrolls (NFP), Consumer Price Index (CPI), and central-bank rate decisions. Spreads often widen in the seconds around a red release, and stops can be jumped.
Orange (medium) events move price, but the reaction is usually smaller and fades faster. They are worth watching if you are already in a trade on the affected currency, but they rarely justify standing aside on their own.
Yellow (low) events rarely do anything on their own. Most traders filter them out entirely so they do not clutter the view. The exception is when several yellow events cluster around the same time as an orange or red one — then the combined weight can matter.
How to set your time zone
Setting your time zone is the first thing to do, and the step most beginners skip. The calendar defaults to a US Eastern time zone. If that is not where you are, every event time you see is offset from your real local time — and you will prepare for a release that already happened, or miss one entirely.
To set it, open the calendar and click the clock/time link in the top-right of the page (labelled with the current time zone). Choose your city or UTC offset, and the whole calendar re-times to match. The setting is stored in your browser, so you only do it once per device.
If you trade across sessions, working in GMT/UTC is often cleaner than a local zone, because most economic-calendar commentary and broker server times reference GMT. For example, the London session opens at 08:00 GMT (13:30 IST, 15:00 WIB, 10:00 SAST) — pinning the calendar to GMT lets you line release times up against session windows without doing time-zone maths in your head.
To make session timing even easier, pair the calendar with our free forex session clock, which shows the London, New York, and Asian sessions live in your zone. Seeing a red release land inside the London/New York overlap (13:00–17:00 GMT) tells you volatility could be extreme.
How to filter for high-impact news
The default calendar shows everything, which is noisy. The filter is what turns it into a usable tool. Click the “Filter” link (usually top-right) and you can switch events on and off by impact colour, by currency, and by event type.
The single most useful filter is impact: turn off yellow (low) and often orange (medium), leaving only the red (high-impact) folders. Now the calendar shows only the events with a real track record of moving price — a clean list you can actually plan a trading day around.
The currency filter narrows it further. If you only trade EUR/USD and XAU/USD, filter to USD and EUR events (gold is USD-driven, so USD data matters for XAU/USD too). Everything else disappears. This is the fastest way to answer “is there anything today that affects my pairs?”
One honest caveat: the impact colour is Forex Factory’s own estimate, not a law. An orange event can occasionally move price more than a red one if the number is a big surprise. Filter to reduce noise, but do not assume a non-red event is guaranteed to be quiet.
Actual vs Forecast vs Previous — what the numbers mean
Every data event has three number columns: Previous, Forecast, and Actual. Understanding what each one is — and which one the market reacts to — is the difference between reading the calendar and merely looking at it.
Previous is the value from the last time this data was released. It is the baseline, already priced in. Forecast (sometimes called Consensus) is what economists collectively expect this release to be. This expectation is also largely priced in before the number comes out.
Actual is the real figure, published the moment the event fires. Before release, this column is blank; at release time, the number appears — and this is when price can move.
The key idea: the market reacts to the surprise, not the raw number. Price moves on the gap between Actual and Forecast, because the Forecast was already built into current prices. If Actual comes in far from Forecast, the market has to reprice, fast. If Actual matches Forecast, the reaction is often muted — even on a red event.
A simple way to hold it: Forecast is what the market expected; Actual is what happened; the distance between them is the fuel for the move. Whether that move helps or hurts a currency depends on the specific data (a stronger-than-expected inflation print, for example, is read differently from stronger-than-expected jobs), which is why the calendar is a preparation tool, not an automatic buy/sell signal.
How to use the calendar to plan trades
The calendar’s real job is risk management around scheduled events — not generating entries. Used this way, it is one of the most valuable free tools a retail trader has. Used as a signal system, it is a fast way to get stopped out on a spike.
Prepare before the event. Each morning, filter to red (and the currencies you trade) and note the times. If a red release is due while you plan to be in a trade, you know in advance that volatility, wider spreads, and slippage are on the table.
Decide your stance ahead of time. Most consistent traders do one of two things around a red release: flatten (close or avoid new positions through the event) or widen risk assumptions (smaller size, wider stop, aware that price can gap). Because releases can jump stops, size the position before the news, not after. Our free lot size calculator makes it quick to dial risk down ahead of a high-impact print.
Avoid the temptation to trade the spike itself. The first move after a red release is often violent and reverses within minutes — the classic spike-and-fade. This is not a beginner-friendly entry. If you want a structured intraday approach that respects the calendar rather than gambling on it, our guide to day trading strategies for beginners is a better starting point than any news-scalping “system.”
A note on gold (XAU/USD): gold is especially sensitive to US data. CPI, NFP, and FOMC rate decisions can move XAU/USD 200–500 pips in the minutes around release, and gold spreads widen sharply during these windows. If you trade gold, treat every red USD event on the calendar as a stand-aside-or-reduce-size event unless you have a tested plan.
If you are still learning the basics of what the calendar is measuring, start with what forex trading is and build up from there — the calendar makes far more sense once the underlying mechanics are clear.
Ready to put this into practice?
Open an account with a regulated broker and apply what you have learned. These are the three brokers we recommend:
Trading forex and CFDs carries a significant risk of loss and is not suitable for everyone. Broker links are affiliate links — we may earn a commission at no cost to you.
Forex and CFD trading carries a high level of risk and may not be suitable for all traders. The strategies and indicators described in this article are educational. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Always test on a demo account before risking real capital.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Forex Factory calendar?
The Forex Factory calendar is a free, real-time economic calendar at forexfactory.com that lists scheduled data releases, central-bank decisions, and speeches. Each event is tagged with the affected currency, the release time, and a colour showing expected market impact. Traders use it to know what is scheduled, when it hits, and how much volatility to expect — mainly as a risk-management tool, not a signal system.
How do I read the Forex Factory calendar?
Read it in three steps. First, set your time zone so every release time is correct for you. Second, filter to high-impact (red) events and the currencies you trade to cut the noise. Third, when an event fires, compare the Actual number against the Forecast and Previous — the market reacts to the gap between Actual and Forecast, not the raw figure.
What do the colours on Forex Factory mean?
The colours are impact levels. Yellow means low impact (minimal reaction), orange means medium impact (noticeable but usually short-lived moves), and red means high impact (sharp, fast moves and wider spreads). Red folders — NFP, CPI, interest-rate decisions — are the events most likely to move your pairs and the ones most traders plan their day around.
How do I set my time zone on Forex Factory?
Click the time-zone link in the top-right of the calendar page (it shows the current zone), then pick your city or UTC offset. The whole calendar re-times to match, and the setting saves in your browser so you only do it once per device. Trading in GMT/UTC is often cleanest, since most calendar commentary and broker server times reference GMT.
What do Actual, Forecast, and Previous mean?
Previous is the value from the last release (the baseline). Forecast is what economists collectively expect this time — already largely priced in. Actual is the real number, published at release time. Price moves on the surprise — the gap between Actual and Forecast — so if Actual matches Forecast, the reaction is often muted, even on a red event.
How do I filter for high-impact news only?
Click the “Filter” link (top-right) and switch off the yellow (low) and usually orange (medium) impact folders, leaving only red (high-impact) events. Add the currency filter to show only the pairs you trade. The result is a clean list of the handful of events each day that actually move price, which is far easier to plan around than the full calendar.
Is the Forex Factory calendar free and accurate?
Yes, it is free and needs no account. Its times and forecasts are sourced from standard economic-data providers and are broadly reliable, but treat them as estimates: forecasts are consensus expectations that can be wrong, and the impact colours are Forex Factory’s own judgement, not a guarantee. Always confirm critical release times against a second source if you are trading around them.
What time do economic releases hit?
Release times are fixed to a local clock and shown in the calendar’s time column — which is why setting your time zone first is essential. Major US data such as NFP and CPI release at 08:30 US Eastern (13:30 GMT in the US winter, but 12:30 GMT during US daylight-saving time, roughly mid-March to early November), and FOMC decisions land at 14:00 US Eastern (19:00 GMT in winter, 18:00 GMT during US daylight time). The GMT time shifts by one hour with US clock changes because the release is anchored to Eastern Time, not GMT — another reason to read the exact time off the calendar in your own zone rather than assuming a fixed GMT figure. European and Asian releases follow their own local schedules.