Definition of Delivery date

The day in the month that commodities on a futures contract have to be delivered is called the Delivery date.

Every forward and futures contract contains a delivery date on which the corresponding commodity should be delivered to the holder of the contract provided he/she has the contract upto the date of maturity.

Points to remember:

• A future contract is generally referred by its delivery month.
• The exchange market that deals with the futures contract should put forward the specified period during which the delivery can be made.
• For a few of the futures contract, the delivery period is the whole month, for some of it, it is a specific date.

Example:
If a contract specifies the delivery date to be March 2019, then the futures contract will have to be delivered within the specified month of March.