China Factory Holidays 2026–27: The Cutoff Dates Behind Every Made-to-Order Quote

Almost everything on this site is made to order in China, and that is exactly why our landed prices work the way they do. It also means three dates on the Chinese calendar decide whether an in-hands date is realistic. Here are the 2026 and 2027 windows, the lead-time maths behind them, and the order-by dates to put in your own calendar.

The 2026–27 factory calendar at a glance

The public holiday is what the government publishes. The factory closure is what our suppliers tell us they will do, and it is always longer. Plan against the second column of dates, not the first.

How the lead-time maths works

A made-to-order item has three clocks running in sequence. Production only starts once you approve the free digital proof, and the freight clock only starts when the factory hands the cartons to the forwarder.

• Proofing: 1–3 business days, mostly waiting on approval.
• Production: the days listed on each product page, typically 7–20. A stainless tumbler runs about 15, a tote about 12, a metal pen about 10, an umbrella about 7.
• Air freight and customs: 7–10 days door to door, duties and brokerage already in your landed price.

When a holiday sits inside any of those windows, the whole chain pauses. A factory that closes on 27 January does not finish a job on 28 January and hold it for you. It finishes it in the second half of February, after the returning workers clear the jobs that were already on the floor.

Order-by dates for Chinese New Year 2027

The pattern is simple. Everything confirmed before the December cutoff arrives before the seven-week gap. Everything confirmed after it arrives after the gap. There is no order date that lands in the middle.

The Golden Week version of the same rule

National Day is a smaller shutdown with the same shape. For an in-hands date in the second or third week of October, the job has to be finished and on a plane before 25 September. Proofs approved in the last week of September go into production on or after 8 October and land in the second half of the month. If a quote you are holding right now has a mid-October event on it, the answer is to approve today or move the date.

Three things that go wrong every year

1. Proof approval drifts. The order is placed on 10 December, the proof sits over the holidays, and by 4 January the factory is already turning down pre-New-Year work. Approve before you leave for the break.
2. Freight is booked late. The last two weeks before New Year are the busiest air-cargo period of the year. Space runs out and rates rise. Our landed price protects you from the rate, not from the space, so finished goods are booked the day they are ready.
3. Post-holiday quality dips. A factory that lost a fifth of its workforce over the break is training new staff in late February. We inspect those early runs harder, and we tell you if a product is better ordered a little later.

What we do on our side

Give us the in-hands date at quote time, not at order time. We check it against the calendar above before we quote, tell you if it clears, and suggest a comparable product with a shorter production window if it does not. If a holiday moves an order after it has been confirmed, you hear from us before it happens, not after the tracking number goes quiet.

Chinese New Year moves every year because it follows the lunar calendar. It is 6 February in 2027 and 26 January in 2028, which pulls the 2028 shutdown into the middle of January. If you run a fixed February program, that is the year to order in November.