How many business days after the trade it settles — T+2, and increasingly T+1.
The settlement cycle is the interval between trade and settlement, expressed as T plus a number of business days. Most equity markets ran T+2 for years; the United States moved to T+1 in 2024 and other markets have followed or announced.
The count is in business days OF THE RELEVANT MARKET, which is where a calendar becomes load-bearing. T+2 across a market holiday is three or four calendar days, and across a national shutdown can be a week.
Shortening the cycle reduces counterparty exposure and compresses the time available to fix errors, which is why the change is operationally significant rather than administrative.
The settlement cycle counts business days to a date. A day count convention measures elapsed time for interest. Different jobs.
See also trade date · settlement date · trading day · settlement finality
We hold no settlement or clearing calendars. This entry defines the term and demonstrates nothing, because a near-miss borrowed from exchange closures would imply coverage that does not exist. See what we hold.