China Mid-Autumn & National Day 2026: Shipping Cut-Off Calendar

China’s National Day (Golden Week) holiday runs from Thursday, October 1 to Wednesday, October 7, 2026; the official calendar has offices working again from Thursday, October 8, and Saturday, October 10 is worked as a make-up day. The Mid-Autumn Festival holiday (September 25-27) came just before it, so many suppliers lose parts of two weeks out of three. The State Council’s notice fixes those dates. It does not fix when a particular factory, warehouse or sailing is back to normal — and that is what decides your next shipment date.

So this guide starts with the restart: the four things to confirm with your factory, warehouse, carrier and declarant before you commit a new date downstream. The official 2026 calendar and the pre-holiday cut-off plan follow for reference, and the last section links forward to Chinese New Year 2027, the next major closure and a longer one.

Key takeaways

• National Day (Golden Week) is a 7-day public holiday, October 1-7, 2026 (Thursday through Wednesday), with Sunday September 20 and Saturday October 10 worked as make-up days.
• The official calendar has offices working again from Thursday, October 8. A factory’s own restart and full output can come later, so confirm it rather than assume it.
• Before booking the next shipment, confirm four things: the factory’s revised ready date, what the warehouse is holding and when it loads, the carrier’s current departure and its cut-offs, and whether the export documents still match the cargo.
• The first departures after the holiday are typically busy, because cargo held over both closures competes for the same space.
• Mid-Autumn Festival was a 3-day public holiday, September 25-27, 2026, with no separate make-up workday.
• The next major closure is Chinese New Year 2027 (lunar New Year’s Day: February 6, 2027), and it is longer — start that plan from the restart, not in January.
• All timing here is a planning calendar, not a promise of space or a transit estimate.

Restart checklist: what to confirm before the next shipment

The official calendar tells you when offices are open. It does not tell you when your cargo moves. Ask each party below before you give a customer, a warehouse or a marketplace a new date.

Who to ask	What to confirm	Why it matters after the break
Factory or supplier	The day production restarts (or restarted), whether the line is fully staffed, and a revised ready date for each open order	Official working days and a factory’s own restart are not the same date, and a supplier that lost parts of two holiday weeks may still be catching up
Warehouse or consolidation point	Which cargo it received before the break, when that cargo is scheduled to load, and the receiving cut-off for the next departure	Goods delivered before October 1 can still be waiting for a departure, and an LCL consolidation waits for its own cut-off
Carrier or forwarder	Whether the booked sailing or flight still stands or was rolled, blanked or consolidated; the current departure date; the cargo and document cut-offs (截关/截单) for that departure	Departures around the holiday can be cancelled or merged, and the first ones after it fill first
Exporter and customs declarant	Whether the export declaration has been filed, and whether the invoice, packing list and booking still agree on quantity, packages and weight after any change	A changed quantity or a rolled booking can leave records that no longer agree; our China export customs document checklist covers what has to match

Write the confirmed dates in one place and plan from the latest of them, not the earliest. If an answer is “not yet known”, that is the date to chase — not the one to fill in with a guess.

Official 2026 holiday calendar

The State Council’s General Office published the 2026 holiday notice on November 4, 2025. These are the dates that apply nationally; provincial and local offices, and individual factories, may adjust their own working days around them.

Date	Event	Working day?
Sunday, September 20, 2026	Make-up workday, shifted ahead of the National Day break	Working
Friday, September 25 – Sunday, September 27, 2026	Mid-Autumn Festival public holiday	Holiday
Thursday, October 1 – Wednesday, October 7, 2026	National Day (Golden Week) public holiday	Holiday
Thursday, October 8, 2026	First working day after the National Day break	Working
Saturday, October 10, 2026	Make-up workday, shifted from the National Day break	Working

Government offices, most factories and customs follow this calendar. What varies supplier by supplier is how much earlier production stopped before the holiday, and how long output takes to return to normal afterwards — confirm both directly rather than treating the official dates as the full operational picture.

The 2026 pre-holiday cut-off plan, kept for reference

Before the break, this guide recommended planning against the calendar dates rather than a day count. The sequence is kept as published, so you can compare it with what actually happened to your shipments and reuse it for the next holiday. It runs from the last stage back to the first:

• Production completion. Aim to have goods finished before the Sunday, September 20 make-up workday — effectively the last full working week before the Mid-Autumn closure, and many factories slow output ahead of it rather than stopping abruptly on September 25.
• Loading and warehouse delivery. Cargo should be packed and delivered to the port or consolidation warehouse in that same pre-September-20 window. Trucking and warehouse staff also reduce their schedules around both holidays, so a delivery planned for the days immediately before either break is the least reliable window on the calendar.
• Customs declaration. File export declarations before the holiday windows open wherever possible. A declaration submitted at the last moment is the one most likely to wait until the holiday ends — confirm the specific cut-offs with your forwarder.
• Cut-off and document deadlines. Carriers typically bring forward their cargo and document cut-offs (截关/截单) for sailings and flights in the days right before September 25 and again right before October 1. Ask your forwarder for the cut-off dates on your lane — do not assume the usual weekly schedule holds through either week.
• Booking and departure. Reserve space ahead of both rushes rather than into them. Vessel space in particular tightens in the run-up to each holiday as shippers converge on the same two deadlines, and a late booking is the one most likely to be rolled to a later sailing.

Ocean vs air around the two holidays

The two modes are affected differently, and the difference matters most for anyone caught close to either deadline or waiting on the restart.

• Ocean schedules are set further in advance and adjust less flexibly once disrupted. Carriers commonly blank or consolidate sailings around both holiday windows, and a booking that slips past its intended sailing typically has to wait for the next available one rather than a quick substitute.
• Air freight generally keeps more schedule flexibility, though cargo space still tightens as general cargo and e-commerce shippers compete for the same capacity around both closures, and ground handling at origin airports slows over the holiday days themselves.
• Air is the more realistic bridge for urgent cargo caught by either closure. If an ocean booking is rolled or a restock cannot wait, air freight is the practical way to keep moving during the gap — our air vs ocean freight from China guide covers how to weigh that trade-off for a specific shipment.

After the break: the restart and Chinese New Year 2027

Expect a gradual restart rather than an immediate return to the pre-holiday pace. Factories bring workers back over days to weeks, warehouses and trucking clear what was held over both closures, and the first sailings and flights after National Day are typically busy. That is why the checklist above asks for each party’s own date instead of reading one from the calendar.

These two closures also land at the start of the Q4 peak-buying season, and the next major closure is longer. Chinese New Year 2027 falls on February 6, 2027, and the factory shutdown around it usually runs for weeks rather than days. The same discipline — locking production, loading, customs and booking dates against the calendar rather than a day count — applies at greater scale; our Chinese New Year 2027 shipping guide lays it out as a date table to fill in with your supplier’s and carrier’s dates.

Frequently asked questions

When do offices and factories in China go back to work after National Day 2026? The official calendar has offices working again from Thursday, October 8, 2026, and Saturday, October 10 is a make-up workday. Each factory sets its own restart and may run below full output for a while, so confirm your supplier’s date directly.

What are the official dates for Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day in 2026? Mid-Autumn Festival is September 25-27, 2026 (a 3-day holiday), and National Day is October 1-7, 2026 (a 7-day holiday), per the State Council General Office’s notice published November 4, 2025.

Are there make-up workdays around these holidays? Yes. Sunday, September 20 and Saturday, October 10, 2026 are both worked as ordinary business days so the National Day break totals seven consecutive days off. Mid-Autumn Festival has no attached make-up workday.

My booking moved over the holiday. What should I ask my forwarder? Ask for the current departure date, the cargo and document cut-offs for that departure, and whether the space is confirmed. Then check that the invoice, packing list and booking still agree on quantity, packages and weight before the declaration is filed.

Does customs process export declarations during the holiday? Arrangements differ by port, so ask your declarant how the customs office at your port is handling declarations over the break rather than assuming either a full stop or normal processing. Filing before a holiday starts avoids depending on it.

Can air freight bridge the gap if ocean space is booked out? Yes. Air freight typically keeps more schedule flexibility than ocean around both closures, which makes it the practical option for urgent cargo or a restock that cannot wait for a rolled ocean booking to clear.

If you want help re-planning a shipment that moved over the holiday — or deciding between ocean and air for something time-sensitive — message us on WhatsApp with your product, volume and destination, and we will help you set the next dates around the restart.