Chinese New Year Shipping Timeline: When to Book and Ship
Last updated: November 2026
Importing from China into the US, Canada, Europe, Southeast Asia or Australia — whether you run an e-commerce storefront, feed a production line, or stock retail shelves — the weeks around Chinese New Year are the one time each year when the whole supply chain moves on the same calendar. Suppliers stop loading, truckers disappear, carriers thin out sailings, and everyone's cargo competes for the same pre-holiday departures. This guide lays out the dates that matter for Chinese New Year 2027 (Saturday 6 February), what actually happens at each link of the chain, and the last safe booking and cargo-ready dates by transport mode and destination — so you can build a backward plan instead of hoping.
Quick answer: when do you need to ship before Chinese New Year?
Chinese New Year 2027 falls on Saturday 6 February, and China's official public holiday runs 5–13 February. Factory output winds down from mid-January, many suppliers make their last container loadings in the final week of January, and some lines do not return to full capacity until early March. For ocean freight, confirm bookings 4–6 weeks before your intended departure — from late November for cargo that must arrive in Europe or on the US East Coast before the holiday, or by mid-January simply to get cargo out of China before shutdown. Air freight holds longer: book 2–3 weeks ahead and move cargo in the first days of February at the latest. Chinese ports and customs keep operating through the holiday with reduced staffing and fewer vessel calls, but pre-holiday congestion and post-holiday backlogs typically stretch the disruption window to six to eight weeks.
Reviewed on 9 November 2026. Holiday dates follow the official announcement from China's State Council; all timing guidance consists of planning estimates built on published industry advisories and our own corridor transit ranges — not guarantees or live quotations. Confirm each supplier's closure dates and request a current quote before you commit to a sales date.
The dates that matter for Chinese New Year 2027
When | What happens | What you should be doing |
|---|---|---|
Early–mid December 2026 | Pre-holiday rush builds; space on long-haul ocean lanes tightens | Final purchase orders for goods that must arrive before the holiday; book sea freight for Europe and US East Coast arrivals |
Mid–late December 2026 | Factories push out queued orders; container and trailer equipment gets scarce in coastal hubs | Confirm bookings for January departures; lock cargo-ready dates with suppliers |
Early January 2027 | Many suppliers stop accepting new orders for pre-holiday delivery; production lead times stretch | Place last "out before shutdown" orders; arrange quality inspection slots before goods are packed |
Mid-January 2027 | Production winds down at export factories; worker departures begin | Cargo for far destinations should already be booked; finalise documentation (packing lists, HS codes, certificates of origin) |
Late January (25–31) | Truck capacity tightens sharply; last dependable container loadings at many suppliers; gates congest at ports | Last ocean cargo-ready dates for "out before shutdown"; air bookings for early-February departures |
5–13 February (official holiday) | Official holiday week; factories closed; ports, customs and carriers run reduced schedules | Cargo in transit keeps moving; use the week to reconcile documents and plan March replenishment |
Mid–late February | Factories reopen and ramp unevenly; carriers manage backlogs with blank sailings and rollovers | Expect slower replies and restart-quality variance; book March space early |
March 2027 | Worker return and production normalise through the month; backlog effects can linger into late March | Return to normal ordering rhythm; review what the window cost you and fix it for next year |
Two anchors drive everything in that table. The first is China's official 2027 holiday arrangement, published by the State Council: Spring Festival public holidays run 5–13 February, with New Year's Day on 1–3 January (official announcement, English version on gov.cn, accessed 9 November 2026). The second is your supplier's own calendar — which is the one that actually decides when your cargo moves. Factories close for the official days at minimum, but two-to-four-week total shutdowns and slow, uneven restarts are normal in export manufacturing, because migrant workers travel home and return on their own schedule, some not until mid-to-late March (industry advisories from Kerry Logistics Network's knowledge hub and Crane Worldwide Logistics, accessed 9 November 2026).
How the holiday hits each link in the chain
A shipment is a chain of dependent steps, and Chinese New Year does not hit them all at once. Planning is easier when you can see which link breaks first, and when.
Factories and workers
The labor market, not the official calendar, sets the real closure. Production typically slows one to two weeks before the holiday as workers leave early; quality can wobble in the final working days; and after reopening, staffing shortfalls mean restarts are gradual — a line running at partial output in late February may hit normal pace only in March. Order cutoffs for pre-holiday delivery commonly land in early-to-mid January, which is why a "small order placed in late January" is often really a March order.
Trucking and container equipment
Inland haulage tightens before anything else: drivers head home earlier than factory workers, so the last week of January is when drayage between supplier and port becomes the binding constraint. At the same time, the pre-holiday export surge concentrates empty containers in the yards that need them most, and specific equipment types (high-cubes in particular) get scarce in coastal hubs like Shanghai, Ningbo and Shenzhen. A container booked but not matched with a chassis and a driver is a booking in name only — which is why cargo-ready dates in late January need trucking confirmed, not assumed.
Ports, ocean carriers and sailings
Chinese container terminals stay open through the holiday with reduced labor, but the vessel schedule around them changes. Ahead of the holiday, carriers push capacity to absorb the rush, then remove sailings once factories stop producing — blank sailings in the second half of February are a normal carrier response to weak holiday-week demand, and they combine with cargo rollovers to thin departures just as everyone's deferred cargo reappears. For you, that cuts two ways: the last dependable pre-holiday departures are crowded and prone to rollover, and the first post-holiday departures carry a backlog. If your supply chain runs on fixed weekly or biweekly sailings, check how your carriers normally adjust their sailing rhythm around the holiday rather than assuming the printed schedule holds.
Air freight and express
Air freight follows the same curve compressed. Demand spikes in late January and the first days of February as shippers who missed ocean cutoffs buy speed, and rates respond; ground handling and terminal congestion stretch both before and after the holiday week. The last practical departures for most China-origin air cargo are in the first two to four days of February — after that you are betting on skeleton holiday-week handling. Express networks run through the holiday but with pickup gaps in provinces emptied of drivers.
Customs, warehouses and e-commerce deadlines
China Customs operates year-round with duty staff, and export declarations continue through the holiday — but with fewer officers and no factory staff to fix errors, a document problem on 6 February becomes a 17 February problem. File clean, complete declarations before the holiday week, and pre-position paperwork for anything moving during it. If you sell on marketplaces, remember the deadline structure is doubled: your Amazon FBA or local-warehouse cutoffs sit on top of China's shutdown calendar, and the earlier of the two governs. Cargo that misses a destination-side cutoff but is already produced can wait in a China-side warehouse and ship after the holiday, when space loosens.
Working backward: last safe dates by mode and destination
There are two different deadlines hiding in "ship before Chinese New Year," and picking the wrong one is the most common planning mistake.
Goal A — cargo must arrive at the destination warehouse before 5 February 2027. You are covering sales while Asia is dark. Work strictly backward from the arrival date using door-to-door transit, not port-to-port.
Goal B — cargo just needs to be out of China before factories stop loading. Arrival can fall in mid-to-late February; you are protecting production, not a launch date.
Goal A: the backward math
The formula: last cargo-ready date = required arrival date − door-to-door transit − one week of holiday buffer (congestion, rollovers, slow handling). Using the door-to-door planning ranges from our published corridor guides:
Lane and mode | Door-to-door planning range | Cargo ready and departed China by (with buffer) |
|---|---|---|
China → Europe, sea FCL | 40–60 days | End of November — early December 2026 |
China → Europe, sea LCL | 45–65 days | Mid–late November 2026 |
China → Europe, rail | 22–35 days | Mid–late December 2026 |
China → US East Coast, sea (all-water) | ~36–50 days (28–35 days port-to-port plus inland legs) | Early December 2026 |
China → US West Coast, sea FCL | ~21–35 days (13–18 days port-to-port plus inland legs) | End of December 2026 |
China → Australia, sea FCL | 25–40 days | Mid–late December 2026 |
China → Southeast Asia, sea FCL | 10–25 days | Early–mid January 2027 |
China → US / Europe / Australia, air | 3–10 days | 20–25 January 2027 |
Express courier | 2–7 business days | 26–29 January 2027 |
These are planning dates for cargo that must be in the warehouse before 5 February. If your real deadline is Valentine's Day, a retail launch or a marketplace stocking cutoff, substitute that date into the same formula. For lane-specific sailing times, use our port-to-port transit time tool, and for the underlying mode comparisons see the corridor guides for the US, Germany and Europe and Southeast Asia.
Goal B: the out-before-shutdown math
Here the anchor is your supplier's last loading day, not transit time. Ask them directly; if they cannot answer, plan against the conservative pattern: last loadings around 28 January – 2 February 2027 for a 5 February holiday start. Then:
Book ocean space 4–6 weeks before the intended departure — for late-January departures, that means booking in late December, when carriers still have pre-holiday schedules open.
Hold air freight until closer: 2–3 weeks ahead is the normal advisory window, with cargo moving by 1–3 February.
Add contingency for the trucking squeeze: cargo ready two or three days before the supplier's last loading day is not ready, it is queued.
Expect arrival after the holiday and plan downstream staffing and cash flow on that basis.
Cargo that is produced but cannot move is not stuck — it can wait in bonded or ordinary warehouse storage in China and ship on recovered post-holiday capacity, often at calmer post-holiday space conditions. Compare that holding cost against the cost of an emergency air move before deciding; our piece on when an air top-up beats pulling ocean freight forward walks through that arithmetic.
What the holiday does to costs
No responsible guide quotes you a freight rate for February in November — spot rates around Chinese New Year move with capacity, fuel and demand, and any number printed today would be fiction by the time you book. What you can plan on is the shape of the market, which repeats every year:
Pre-holiday (December – late January): the export rush concentrates demand into fewer departing weeks; space and equipment tighten; carriers apply peak-season surcharges and general rate increases on some lanes; premium products (guaranteed-loading slots) sell out first.
Holiday week (5–13 February): demand collapses with production; departures thin out through blank sailings.
Post-holiday (mid-February – March): deferred cargo returns against reduced capacity; rollovers and congestion can hold rates up even as factory output rebuilds; the market normalises through March as capacity returns.
Your cost lever is timing and mode choice, not negotiation stamina. Book early enough to buy sea freight at pre-rush conditions, keep air freight and rail freight as deliberate mid-tier options rather than emergency purchases, and when you compare quotes, check what the quoted price actually includes — surcharge pass-throughs differ between forwarders, and our guide to what "all-in" means on a freight quote shows which lines to compare.
If you are reading this in January
The window narrows but does not close. In rough order of preference:
Ship partial now, balance after. Split the order: the portion that covers February demand leaves on the last viable departure; the rest ships post-holiday. You pay for urgency on a fraction of the volume instead of all of it.
Switch mode for the critical slice. Convert the must-arrive portion to air or express and let the bulk sail later. This is usually cheaper than converting everything.
Rail for Europe-bound cargo. The China–Europe rail network is the classic mid-CNY hedge: faster than sea, far cheaper than air. It has its own holiday dynamics (border transfers and corridor availability), so ask for the current operating picture before committing.
Hold in China, ship calm. Produced cargo waits in a warehouse and ships in the recovered post-holiday market. You trade a few weeks of delay for calmer capacity and often calmer rates.
Reset the promise. If none of the above lands cargo before your real deadline, moving the sales date is cheaper than a stockout-plus-expedite combination. Update demand plans in February rather than discovering them in March.
One more seasonal interaction worth planning for: this window sits in peak winter, and cold-chain cargo, northern-origin departures and destination-side winter storms can each add days on top of the holiday congestion. Our winter weather freight guide covers those failure modes separately from the holiday calendar.
Questions to send your suppliers this week
A five-minute email now prevents a three-week surprise in February. Ask each supplier:
What is your last day loading export containers before the holiday, and your first day loading after it?
What is the last order date for goods delivered before the holiday, at current lead times?
What percentage of the line workforce do you expect back in the first week after reopening?
Will you run any production during the official holiday week, or the weekends either side of it?
Who is your freight contact during the holiday week if we need a document or a gate move?
Write the answers into your purchase orders. "Reopen on 15 February" means nothing until you know at what output fraction, and the suppliers who answer these questions precisely are also the ones whose cargo-ready dates hold.
Copy-and-send freight quote request
Paste this into an email or a quote form and you will get back numbers you can actually plan against:
Route: [factory city, China] → [destination port / airport / warehouse address] Cargo: [description] | [number of packages / pallets / containers] | [total weight kg] | [total volume CBM] Incoterm: [FOB / EXW / DAP / DDP — and who handles destination clearance] Cargo ready date: [date] | Supplier last loading day: [date] Deadline type: [must arrive at warehouse by (date)] or [must depart China before shutdown] Preferred mode: [sea FCL / sea LCL / rail / air / express — or "recommend"] Please include: all-in price with surcharges listed separately; the vessel / flight and cutoff dates this booking would target; what happens to the booking if the departure rolls; and the same quote for one departure week later as a fallback.
For a China-side view of the same question, send it to our quote desk with your cargo details — we will map your deadline onto the current sailing schedule and tell you which week is genuinely the last one.
Frequently asked questions
When is Chinese New Year 2027? Saturday 6 February 2027, with China's official public holiday running 5–13 February per the State Council's 2027 holiday announcement. Factories typically close beyond the official days — two to four weeks in total is common in export manufacturing.
Do Chinese ports close during Chinese New Year? No. Container terminals and customs continue operating through the holiday with reduced staffing. What changes is the vessel schedule: carriers blank sailings around the holiday week, so departures thin out, cargo rolls, and both the week before and the two to three weeks after run congested.
How long do Chinese factories shut down for Chinese New Year? The official holiday is nine days in 2027, but real shutdowns run longer. Production winds down from mid-January, many suppliers finish pre-holiday loading in the last week of January, and restarts after mid-February are gradual — with some workforces not fully back until mid-to-late March.
When should I book ocean freight before Chinese New Year? Four to six weeks before your intended departure: from late November for cargo that must arrive in Europe or on the US East Coast before the holiday, or by around mid-January to secure a late-January departure that simply gets cargo out of China before shutdown.
Is air freight affected by Chinese New Year? Yes. Demand spikes in late January and early February as shippers who missed ocean cutoffs buy speed, and handling congestion stretches transit on both sides of the holiday. Book two to three weeks ahead; most China-origin air cargo realistically needs to move by 1–3 February.
What happens to freight rates around Chinese New Year? The pattern repeats yearly: space and equipment tighten and surcharges appear on some lanes through December and January; demand drops during the holiday week as sailings are blanked; then deferred cargo meets reduced capacity in late February, holding pressure on the market until it normalises through March. Specific rates move weekly — treat any number quoted in November as stale by booking time and ask for a live quote.
How long does it take for shipping to normalise after Chinese New Year? Plan on a six-to-eight-week disruption window from the holiday week: blank sailings and rollovers in the second half of February, uneven factory restarts through late February, and backlog effects possible into late March. Order Q1 replenishment against that window, not against the official nine-day holiday.
Do other countries stop for Chinese New Year too? Vietnam's Tết falls on the same lunar date (6 February 2027) and shuts Vietnamese factories for roughly a week or more; suppliers across other Asian manufacturing hubs take shorter or staggered breaks. If your chain runs China + Vietnam components, overlay both calendars — the gaps compound.
Sources and scope
State Council of the People's Republic of China, "Public holidays for 2027" (English), english.www.gov.cn — official 2027 holiday dates including Spring Festival 5–13 February; accessed 9 November 2026. Credibility: high (primary official source).
Kerry Logistics Network (KLN) Oceania knowledge hub, "Chinese New Year: Supply Chain Disruption Risks" — factory closure and restart patterns, booking-lead advisories (ocean FCL/LCL 4–6 weeks, air 2–3 weeks), pre-holiday equipment shortages, post-holiday blank sailings and the six-to-eight-week disruption window; accessed 9 November 2026. Credibility: medium-high (major logistics group advisory; 2026-cycle article applied as a planning pattern).
Crane Worldwide Logistics, "Lunar New Year 2027: Early Planning Guide for Importers" — shutdowns beginning two to three weeks before the holiday, December–January capacity tightening, regional scope including Vietnam; accessed 9 November 2026. Credibility: medium (global forwarder guidance, non-specific).
Prodoer Logistics corridor guides (China–US, China–Germany/Europe, China–Southeast Asia) — door-to-door and port-to-port planning ranges used in the backward-planning table; ranges are planning estimates reviewed at each guide's publication date, not quotations.
Scope: written for importers buying from China; holiday dates are specific to the 2027 cycle and reviewed as dated above; all timing and cost guidance is planning-level. Confirm supplier calendars and live rates before committing dates to customers.
Ready to lock your pre-holiday departures? Get a shipping quote, check your lane on the port-to-port transit time tool, or see how the corridor guides above handle mode choice for the US, Europe and Southeast Asia.