Use verified holiday dates as planning triggers, then confirm closure, restart, cargo-ready and freight dates with each factory and forwarder.
Early January can be useful for orders that do not depend on completion before the Spring Festival, but available capacity varies by factory and component supplier.
Action: Obtain a written production and shipment schedule from the factory. Do not infer a universal cutoff from the holiday date.
Best window Confirm route capacityFreight space and rates can tighten before Chinese New Year as shippers try to move goods before factory closures. The timing and premium vary by route, carrier and year.
Action: Ask your forwarder for a route-specific booking window and confirm cargo-ready dates with the factory before booking.
Freight peak Book earlyChinese New Year 2026 fell on 17 February. Factory closure and restart dates were company-specific and often extended beyond the official holiday.
Planning lesson: Confirm the factory, key sub-supplier and logistics schedules directly. Use normal quality controls on restarted production rather than assuming a specific defect-rate increase without supplier data.
Factory closed Confirm factory datesFactory restarts vary after the holiday; some lines and sub-suppliers return later than others. Treat March capacity as something to confirm, not assume.
Action: Request an updated production plan and use the same pre-shipment inspection standard you apply to other significant orders.
Best windowThe Canton Fair (China Import and Export Fair) runs in three phases across April–May. Phase 1: electronics and industrial products. Phase 2: consumer goods, gifts, home furnishings. Phase 3: textiles, footwear, health products.
Blackout effect: During Canton Fair weeks, factory sales staff and management are in Guangzhou. Expect response times to slow significantly and new-order processing to pause. Do not expect fast quotations or sample approvals in these windows.
Response times slow Trade fair blackoutMay through early June can be a useful period for Q3 planning after the Spring Festival restart and Canton Fair. Actual factory capacity, component availability, lead time and freight conditions remain supplier- and route-specific.
Action: Ask the supplier for a written production plan and your forwarder for a dated route quotation before committing to an August–October arrival.
Suggested planning window Confirm live capacityAugust is not a national manufacturing shutdown. Individual factories may schedule maintenance, worker leave or heat-related adjustments, while seasonal export demand can tighten some production and freight routes.
Action: Confirm the exact factory’s staffing, maintenance plan, material availability and promised ship date instead of applying a national capacity percentage.
Partial slowdownPre-Christmas demand can tighten vessel space and equipment on some China–Europe routes from September into November. The size and timing of any rate change varies by origin, destination, carrier, equipment and booking date.
Golden Week can add a production and handover interruption inside this period. Use a current forwarder quotation and booking recommendation for the actual route.
Route-specific pressure Ask your forwarderThe official holiday falls inside a busy export-planning period, but supplier closure and restart dates are not universal. Factory, component suppliers, warehouse, customs broker and forwarder may follow different schedules.
Action: Obtain written last-order, production-completion, cargo-handover and restart dates from every party in the route. Do not rely on a universal September shipping cutoff.
Confirm factory closure Confirm restart dateThe autumn session starts a week after Golden Week. Phase 1: electronics, appliances, lighting, machinery, hardware and vehicles. Phase 2: household goods, gifts and decoration, furniture and building materials. Phase 3: textiles, garments and footwear, toys and baby products, office supplies, health and personal care. The halls are closed on 20–22 and 28–30 October while they are rebuilt between phases.
Blackout effect: Sales staff for your product category are in Guangzhou during their phase. Expect slower quotations and sample approvals from mid-October to early November, and confirm orders needed before Chinese New Year 2027 either before the fair or straight after it.
Response times slow Trade fair blackoutYear-end demand and pre-holiday scheduling can put pressure on some factories, but the effect is supplier-specific. Review capacity, staffing and sub-supplier commitments rather than assuming a universal defect trend.
Action: Pre-shipment inspection is always valuable, it is most critical for goods produced in November–December. Budget for it on any significant order.
Quality risk elevated PSI recommendedChinese New Year 2027 falls on 6 February. There is no universal January cutoff: many production orders will need to be locked much earlier, depending on materials, production time and the factory’s own closure.
Action: For goods needed before the holiday, start capacity discussions in early Q4 2026, lock the schedule before year-end where feasible, and obtain the factory’s written closure and restart dates.
Plan in Q4 2026Chinese New Year 2027 falls on 6 February (Year of the Goat). Factory closures may begin before the official holiday and restarts vary; confirm dates with the factory and key sub-suppliers.
Factory closedApproximate dates: Phase 1 mid-April, Phase 2 late April, Phase 3 early May. Same blackout effect as 2026, expect slow responses from factory sales staff during these weeks.
Trade fair blackoutKnowing the calendar is one thing. Acting on it early enough is another. These are the rules that separate importers who hit their stock targets from those who don't.
Booking pressure differs by lane, carrier and cargo-ready date. Start the discussion early, but use current quotes and cutoffs from your forwarder instead of a universal 8–10 week rule.
If your primary supplier is slow to restart or has quality issues in the first post-CNY production run, you need an alternative. Maintaining a warm relationship with a secondary supplier through the CNY period is standard risk management for any importer.
The 10 days of Canton Fair phases are really 3 weeks of disruption, the week before (preparation), the fair itself, and the week after (recovery). Do not schedule important negotiations, sample approvals, or order confirmations for this window.
Late-year schedule pressure can increase the cost of discovering defects after shipment. Price an inspection for the actual product, factory location, sampling plan and test scope; then compare that quote with the value and recoverability of the order. Do not use a universal inspection price or risk multiple.
May–June may offer useful time for supplier evaluations, sampling rounds and compliance-document requests after the Spring Festival restart. Confirm the chosen factory’s order book, trade-fair commitments, component constraints and your forwarder’s current route conditions before treating it as a preferred window.
Use recurring planning reviews rather than fixed universal order windows: review the next quarter’s demand, supplier capacity, material lead times and holiday schedules together. The appropriate order month depends on the product and supplier.
The Essential report establishes your supplier baseline, and ongoing monitoring flags relevant manufacturing, logistics, and timing changes for the active product family.
Chinese New Year falls on Saturday 6 February 2027. The date follows the lunar calendar and is fixed. The official public holiday around it, usually eight or nine days, is set by China’s State Council, which publishes the coming year’s holiday dates towards the end of the year.
Many factories stop before the public holiday begins, because workers travel home in the weeks before it. Expect output to slow from mid-January 2027 and many lines to stop in the days before 6 February. Closure lengths vary by factory, region and workforce, so ask each supplier for their last production day and restart date in writing.
Offices often reopen within one or two weeks of the holiday, but full production can take several more weeks while workers return and some are replaced. Plan for reduced capacity and slower quality checks through late February and into March 2027, and do not count on work during the closure.
Work back from the supplier’s last production day, not from 6 February: production, inspection and transport to the port all have to fit before it. With 30 to 45 days of production, that usually means confirming orders by November or early December 2026. Freight space also tightens in the weeks before the holiday, so book early.
