You can hold a futures contract until the day it expires, and depending on the product that deadline could be a few weeks or several months away. If you want exposure past that date, you close the expiring contract and open the same position in a later-dated one. This is called rolling, and it lets you keep effective exposure open indefinitely — for months or years — as long as you accept the transaction costs and price differences that come with each roll.
How Long Each Contract Actually Runs
Every futures contract has a built-in expiration date. Under federal law, the exchanges where futures trade set the terms of each contract, including when it expires.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 7 USC 7 – Designation of Boards of Trade as Contract Markets The schedule depends on the underlying asset.
- Energy products like crude oil list a separate contract for every calendar month, January through December, reflecting continuous production and consumption.2CME Group. Crude Oil Futures Calendar
- Financial index products like the E-mini S&P 500 expire quarterly, in March, June, September, and December. Concentrating volume into four contracts a year tends to keep bid-ask spreads tighter.3CME Group. FAQ: Weekly and EOM Options on S&P 500 Futures
- Smaller-sized versions, such as Micro E-mini futures at one-tenth the size of standard E-minis, follow the same calendar as their full-sized counterparts.4CME Group. Micro E-mini Futures and Options
Exchanges publish these calendars years in advance, so the expiration date of any contract you’re considering is knowable up front. If a listed expiration falls on a weekend or exchange holiday, the exchange moves the official trade date to the next business day.5CME Group. CME Group Holiday and Trading Hours
The Deadlines That End Your Window
As expiration nears, two dates on the exchange calendar shorten the time you actually have to act.
First Notice Day is the earliest date the clearinghouse can assign you a delivery notice on a physically settled commodity. If you’re long past this date, you can receive a notice requiring you to accept the physical goods, whether that’s grain, metal, or livestock. The regulatory framework defines the spot month as beginning around the day before delivery notices can first be issued.6eCFR. 17 CFR Part 150 – Limits on Positions
Last Trading Day is the final moment you can buy or sell the contract on the open market. Once trading closes, any remaining position goes to settlement, either physical delivery or a cash payment, depending on the product. You can no longer just click “sell” and be done.
Most brokers set their own cutoffs several hours or even days before the exchange’s official deadlines. If you’re still holding at your broker’s cutoff, the broker closes the position for you. Many firms charge a forced-liquidation fee, around $25 at some brokers, on top of standard commissions.7E*TRADE. Pricing and Rates Check your broker’s specific deadline and put it on your calendar before you open the trade.
What Happens if You Hold to Expiration
If a contract goes all the way to settlement with you still in it, how it settles depends on what the contract is written on.
Contracts on tangible commodities like gold, crude oil, and agricultural products can require actual transfer of goods through an exchange-approved warehouse.8CME Group. Warranting Metals Once you take delivery, you’re on the hook for ongoing storage. For gold on COMEX, approved depositories charge around $20 per contract per month.9CME Group. Approved Changes in Gold, Gold (Enhanced Delivery), and Silver Storage Rates for Asahi Depository LLC Most retail traders avoid this by exiting before First Notice Day.
Financial products like stock index futures and interest rate futures settle in cash. The exchange calculates the difference between your entry price and the final settlement price and credits or debits your account. No goods change hands.
Rolling to Keep the Position Open
Because every contract expires, holding a long-term view in futures means rolling: closing the expiring contract and simultaneously opening the same position in a later month. There’s no cap on how many times you can do this.
The most efficient way to roll is a calendar spread order, which packages both legs into a single transaction. You trade the price difference between the two contracts rather than executing each leg separately, so you cross only one bid-ask spread instead of two. For heavily traded products like Treasury futures, calendar spreads can cut the bid-ask cost of rolling by as much as 75% compared to two separate orders.10CME Group. Treasury Futures Calendar Spreads
Timing matters. Volume migrates from the expiring contract to the next month as expiration approaches, and for many products the bulk of open interest shifts during the last ten business days before the contract month begins.11CME Group. Pace of the Roll User Guide Rolling inside that window generally means tighter spreads and less slippage. Waiting until the final day or two leaves you in a thinner market.
Each roll also carries commissions and exchange fees on both the closing and opening trades. Standard E-mini commissions at major U.S. brokers run roughly $0.75 to $2.25 per contract per side, with exchange and regulatory fees added. Micro contracts sometimes run under $0.50 per side. Multiplied across months or quarters of rolling, these costs eat into returns.
The Roll Cost Most Traders Miss
Transaction fees aren’t the only cost of extending a position. The price gap between the expiring contract and the next one can work with you or against you, depending on the shape of the futures curve.
In contango, later-dated contracts trade at higher prices than near-term ones. This is common in commodities, where storage, financing, and insurance push future prices above the current spot. Rolling a long position in a contango market means selling the cheaper expiring contract and buying a more expensive later one — a net cost each time.12CME Group. What Is Contango and Backwardation
In backwardation, near-term contracts trade at higher prices than later-dated ones, sometimes because holding the physical commodity right now carries value (convenience yield). Rolling a long position in a backwardated market means selling the more expensive contract and buying the cheaper one, a net gain on the roll.12CME Group. What Is Contango and Backwardation
Over months or years, this cumulative curve effect can move your total return more than the commissions do. Crude oil has spent extended periods in contango, meaning long-term holders paid a steady roll cost even during stretches when spot oil barely moved.
What It Takes to Keep the Position Open
Holding a futures position requires maintaining a cash deposit with the clearinghouse, called a performance bond or margin. It isn’t a down payment; it’s collateral against daily losses.
Two levels apply. Initial margin is what you post to open the position: for one E-mini S&P 500 contract, that was approximately $24,200 as of early 2026. Maintenance margin is the minimum equity you must keep to hold it, roughly $22,400 on the same contract.13CME Group. E-mini S&P 500 Futures Margins
If your equity drops below maintenance, your broker issues a margin call and you must deposit enough to bring the account back to initial margin. Fail to meet the call promptly and the broker can liquidate the position without further notice. Margin requirements also change with market volatility, so the amount needed to hold can rise even when your position hasn’t changed.14CME Group. Performance Bonds/Margins Micro E-mini contracts require roughly one-tenth the margin of the full-sized version, which makes long-term holding more accessible for smaller accounts.
Federal rules also cap how many contracts a single person can hold in a given commodity. The CFTC sets speculative position limits at three levels: spot month, any single contract month, and all months combined.6eCFR. 17 CFR Part 150 – Limits on Positions Spot-month limits are tightest and can step down further as expiration approaches. For most individual traders these ceilings sit well above typical size, but a strategy that accumulates contracts across roll cycles has to track its total against the applicable limit.
Taxes on Holding and Rolling
Futures get special federal tax treatment that applies whether you close a position, roll it, or simply keep it open at year end.
Under Section 1256 of the Internal Revenue Code, any gain or loss on a regulated futures contract is split into 60% long-term and 40% short-term capital gain, regardless of how long you actually held it.15Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 1256 – Section 1256 Contracts Marked to Market Because long-term rates are lower than short-term, the blended treatment is generally favorable compared to stocks held under a year.
Holding through year end doesn’t defer the tax. The IRS treats every open Section 1256 contract as if you sold it at fair market value on the last business day of the tax year, and any unrealized gain or loss is included in that year’s income.15Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 1256 – Section 1256 Contracts Marked to Market When you later close or roll, cost basis is adjusted so you aren’t taxed twice on the same gain. Reporting is on IRS Form 6781, using year-end values your broker provides on Form 1099-B.16Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 1099-B
Each roll is a taxable event. Closing the expiring leg realizes a gain or loss; opening the new contract doesn’t defer it. The 60/40 split still applies. Frequent rolling produces a stream of smaller realized amounts throughout the year, all reported on Form 6781, so keep detailed records of entry and exit prices for every leg.17Internal Revenue Service. Form 6781 – Gains and Losses From Section 1256 Contracts and Straddles