Home › Comparisons

Monthly vs quarterly expiry: third Fridays and the end of the quarter

Standard monthly options expire on the third Friday of the month. Quarterly options, offered on some ETFs and indexes, expire on the last trading day of March, June, September and December. They're easy to mix up on a chain, and the extra days carry extra risk.

Comparison · 6-minute read · Updated 2026-10-27

The short answer

Monthly options are the standard contracts. They expire on the third Friday of each month (or the Thursday before, if that Friday is a market holiday). Almost every stock with options has them. See Monthly options.

Quarterly options expire on the last trading day of a calendar quarter: the end of March, June, September and December. They're listed mainly on busy ETFs and index products, not on most single stocks.

In a quarter-end month, both can appear on the same chain, about a week or two apart. Pick the wrong one, and you hold the risk for days you didn't plan on.

Side by side

What "quarterly" can mean on a chain

The word gets used in two ways, which causes confusion.

1. Quarterly options (sometimes called quarterlys): the separate contracts that expire on the last trading day of each quarter.
2. The monthly in a quarter-end month. The third-Friday options in March, June, September and December. That day is busy because stock options, index options and index futures expire together. People call it Triple witching.

For a seller, the first kind is the one to watch. It sits on the chain looking like any other date, just a few days after the monthly.

How listing cycles work for single stocks

Single stocks don't get every month listed far ahead. Each one is assigned to a cycle, and the exchange lists:

• the current month and the next month,
• plus a couple of further months from the stock's cycle,
• plus long-dated options (LEAPS) on many stocks.

Busy names also list weekly options. That's why some stocks show many dates and others show only a few. See our guide to how to read an options chain.

A worked example (an illustration, not a trade idea)

A made-up ETF, XYZ, trades at $50. It's a quarter-end month. The chain shows two dates close together:

• Monthly (third Friday), 25 days away: the $45 put pays $0.90.
• Quarterly (last trading day of the quarter), 35 days away: the $45 put pays $1.10.

The extra $0.20 pays for ten extra days of risk.

Look at the bottom two rows. The monthly seller was done before the drop. The quarterly seller collected $20 more and was still holding when it came.

That's not a reason to avoid quarterlies. It's a reason to know which date you're selling. Ten days can include an earnings report from a big holding, a jobs report or a rate decision.

Which one fits a wheel seller?

For most of the wheel strategy, the standard monthly is the default. It has the deepest market on most stocks, and every stock you might wheel has it.

Quarterlies can make sense when:

• you trade an ETF that lists them, and the quarter-end date lines up with your plan,
• you want a few extra days without jumping to the next monthly,
• the bid-ask spread on the quarterly is as tight as the monthly's.

Before you sell, check the exact date on the ticket, not just the month. And check what news lands between today and that date.

In Canada, the same expiry rules apply to US-listed options in a TFSA or RRSP. Covered calls are widely allowed; cash-secured puts depend on the broker.

Questions