TimeInForce (FIX tag 59)

charFIX 4.4FIX 4.2

TimeInForce (tag 59) is a char field defined in FIX 4.4 and FIX 4.2. It appears in 10 message types, always optionally. It is an enumerated field with 8 defined values.

At a glance

Tag: 59
Name: TimeInForce
Datatype: char
Dialects: FIX 4.4 and FIX 4.2
Messages: 10
Valid values: 8

What the specification says

Specifies how long the order remains in effect. Absence of this field is interpreted as DAY.

Descriptions are quoted from the FIX Orchestra sources under the Apache 2.0 licence.

A real message using tag 59

NewOrderSingle · FIX 4.4

Tag	Field	Wire value	Meaning
8	BeginString	FIX.4.4
9	BodyLength	116
35	MsgType	D	Order – Single
49	SenderCompID	BOARTEAM
56	TargetCompID	COUNTERPARTY
34	MsgSeqNum	2
52	SendingTime	20240101-12:00:00.000
11	ClOrdID	ORD-10042
54	Side	1	Buy
60	TransactTime	20240101-12:00:00.000
40	OrdType	1	Market
59	TimeInForce	0	Day (or session)
10	CheckSum	209

Edit and decode it yourself

Shown with | separators for readability. On the wire FIX uses SOH (0x01), an invisible control byte — and because BodyLength and CheckSum are computed over the actual bytes, the two forms have different checksums. Both are valid and both decode here.

Open in the full decoder →

Generated from the FIX 4.4 dictionary and verified at build time: it parses and validates with no issues. Open the decoder to try your own message.

Valid values

A value outside this list is not a parse error — the message still decodes — but validate() reports it as validate/value-not-in-enum.

Value	Meaning	Symbolic name	Dialects
0	Day (or session)	DAY / Day	FIX 4.4, FIX 4.2
1	Good Till Cancel (GTC)	GOOD_TILL_CANCEL / GoodTillCancel	FIX 4.4, FIX 4.2
2	At the Opening (OPG)	AT_THE_OPENING / AtTheOpening	FIX 4.4, FIX 4.2
3	Immediate or Cancel (IOC)	IMMEDIATE_OR_CANCEL / ImmediateOrCancel	FIX 4.4, FIX 4.2
4	Fill or Kill (FOK)	FILL_OR_KILL / FillOrKill	FIX 4.4, FIX 4.2
5	Good Till Crossing (GTX)	GOOD_TILL_CROSSING / GoodTillCrossing	FIX 4.4, FIX 4.2
6	Good Till Date	GOOD_TILL_DATE / GoodTillDate	FIX 4.4, FIX 4.2
7	At the Close	AT_THE_CLOSE	FIX 4.4

Where tag 59 appears

Requiredness is a property of the message, not of the field: the same tag can be optional in one message and conditionally required in another.

Message	MsgType	FIX 4.4	FIX 4.2	Where in the message
CrossOrderCancelReplaceRequest	t	Optional	—	directly on the message body
ExecutionReport	8	Optional	Optional	directly on the message body
MarketDataIncrementalRefresh	X	Optional	Optional	inside the MDIncGrp component
MarketDataSnapshotFullRefresh	W	Optional	Optional	inside the MDFullGrp component
MultilegOrderCancelReplace	AC	Optional	—	directly on the message body
NewOrderCross	s	Optional	—	directly on the message body
NewOrderList	E	Optional	Optional	inside the ListOrdGrp component
NewOrderMultileg	AB	Optional	—	directly on the message body
NewOrderSingle	D	Optional	Optional	directly on the message body
OrderCancelReplaceRequest	G	Optional	Optional	directly on the message body

Wire format

A single character. Most char fields are enumerated, so the value is one of a fixed set rather than arbitrary text. @boarteam/fix keeps the value as a string and, for enumerated fields, reports validate/value-not-in-enum when it is not a defined value.

Read tag 59 in TypeScript

decode.tsts

import { createFixEngine } from "@boarteam/fix";import { dictionary } from "@boarteam/fix-dict-fix44";const fix = createFixEngine(dictionary);const { message, issues } = fix.parse(raw);const timeInForce = message.fields[59]?.raw;// e.g. "0" — Day (or session)// The dictionary also carries the labels:const label = fix.dictionary  .fieldByTag(59)  ?.enumValues?.find((e) => e.value === timeInForce)  ?.description;

Decode this in your own code

The same engine that produced the decoded example above is an Apache-2.0 npm package with zero runtime dependencies. It runs in Node and in the browser, and parse() returns problems as data instead of throwing.

npm i @boarteam/fix @boarteam/fix-dict-fix44

Try the decoder Source on GitHub