If your business has any connection to China, whether it’s tourism, supply chain, e-commerce, or remote teams, the 2026 Chinese calendar is not a cultural footnote. It directly affects your revenue, your logistics, and your marketing timing.

China’s 2026 Holiday Calendar: Key Dates, Business Impact, and What to Prepare

I work on inbound Chinese tourism campaigns full-time, and the calendar governs almost everything we do. The booking spikes, the content windows, the KOL availability, the platform ad costs — all of it follows these holidays. Miss the timing, and you’re paying more for worse results.

Here’s what 2026 looks like, and what it means practically.

The Full 2026 Chinese Holiday Calendar

China’s State Council confirmed the 2026 holiday schedule in November 2025. Total statutory days off: 13. Two Golden Weeks — Spring Festival at nine days (the longest in years) and National Day at seven days. Here’s the complete breakdown:

Holiday	Gregorian Dates	Duration	Makeup Workdays	Business Impact
New Year’s Day	Jan 1 (Thu)	1 day	None	Low disruption. Sales promos peak.
Spring Festival (CNY)	Feb 15-23 (Sun-Mon)	9 days (longest ever)	Feb 28 (Sat)	High: factories shut 4-6 weeks, outbound travel surge 200M+ trips
Qingming (Tomb-Sweeping)	Apr 4-6 (Sat-Mon)	3 days	None	Moderate: family travel, logistics up 20%
Labor Day	May 1-5 (Fri-Tue)	5 days	Apr 26 (Sun)	High: “Little Golden Week”, domestic tourism spike
Dragon Boat Festival	Jun 19-21 (Fri-Sun)	3 days	None	Moderate: regional events, e-commerce food sales up 30%
Mid-Autumn Festival	Sep 25-27 (Fri-Sun)	3 days	None	Moderate: bridges to National Day for 10+ day breaks
National Day Golden Week	Oct 1-7 (Thu-Wed)	7 days	Sep 20 (Sun), Oct 10 (Sat)	High: 700M+ trips, outbound up 28% YoY in 2025

Source: State Council via english.gov.cn and China Briefing. Note: the Mid-Autumn and National Day dates bridge into a potential 10-13 day travel window for well-placed travelers. Tourism businesses should plan content and packages around both.

What We Got Wrong at First: The Supply Chain Assumption

Early in our work with a European tour operator client, we scheduled a campaign production run for late January. Photography, video shoots, content approvals — all planned for the last two weeks of January. We assumed Chinese staff would be available.

They weren’t. Our Shanghai team was at 30% capacity from January 20. The factories producing client merchandise had closed entirely. The WeChat approval process, which requires a local staff member to handle Tencent queries, was on holiday. We lost three weeks of preparation time right before the most important booking period of the year.

Now our standard onboarding includes a hard deadline: all creative assets and campaign approvals must be signed off before January 15 if the campaign runs during CNY. That’s non-negotiable.

Tourism Opportunities by Holiday

Each holiday has a different traveler profile and different platform behavior. Here’s what actually drives bookings for tourism clients:

Spring Festival (February 15-23)

The biggest outbound window. Families with children traveling internationally. Budget is high — average trip spend is 10-20% above the rest of the year. Key destinations: Japan, Thailand, South Korea, UAE. Booking window starts in October-November. If you’re not seeding content by November, you’re late.

We ran a CNY campaign for a Swiss spa hotel in 2025. Sounds unusual. The client had read that Chinese luxury travelers were looking for “quiet and restorative” experiences rather than shopping trips. We opened a Xiaohongshu account in October, posted 12 pieces of content focused on the thermal baths, the silence, the mountain food. By February we had 18 Chinese guest bookings, all direct, all high-spend. The brief said “try it.” The reality was better than expected.

Labor Day (May 1-5)

The “Little Golden Week.” Less international travel than CNY or National Day, but domestic and short-haul tourism spikes significantly. Good window for Southeast Asia and Japan destinations. Booking starts 6-8 weeks before. Ad costs on WeChat and Xiaohongshu rise 30-40% in the week before the holiday — plan budgets accordingly.

National Day Golden Week (October 1-7)

The second biggest international travel period. Mid-Autumn bridging means some travelers take 10+ days. Long-haul destinations (Europe, Australia, Middle East) see strong volume here. In 2025, outbound bookings hit +28% year-on-year. Chinese travelers who book National Day trips often start looking in July-August.

According to Ctrip’s 2025 holiday travel report, outbound bookings for National Day 2025 reached 1.8 times the volume of 2019. Source: ctrip.com.

What We Do Now: The Calendar-Driven Campaign Structure

Every client campaign now runs on a calendar framework. Here’s how we plan it:

• October-November: CNY campaign content production and seeding. Xiaohongshu posts, WeChat articles, KOL briefings. See our Xiaohongshu marketing page for content format guidance.
• December: Paid amplification on WeChat Moments and Xiaohongshu. CPC runs 10-30 RMB, conversions 15-25% on travel intent keywords.
• January 1-15: All approvals done. Campaign running on autopilot. Team on standby for inquiries only.
• February: Monitor and respond. No new creative launches during the holiday itself.
• March (post-CNY): Retargeting campaign using WeChat follower data. Post-holiday retargeting lifts off-season bookings 25-30%.

For full details on how we structure WeChat campaigns around holiday periods, see our WeChat marketing page.

The Risk Side: What Happens When You Ignore the Calendar

A destination client in Morocco came to us after National Day 2024. They had run a Douyin campaign starting September 28 — three days before the holiday. By then, Chinese travelers had already booked. The campaign spent 80,000 RMB and generated almost no bookings.

The problem was not the platform, not the content, not the product. It was the timing. The booking window had closed. They were paying for awareness at a moment when no one was making new decisions.

For supply chain businesses, the risk is different. CNY factory shutdowns can last 4-6 weeks when you include the pre-holiday slowdown and post-holiday rehiring period. A US electronics importer we spoke with in early 2025 had faced $500,000 in losses from CNY 2024 delays. The fix is simple: order before November 15 for goods that need to ship before CNY. That window is tight.

2026 Key Numbers to Keep in Mind

• 130 million outbound Chinese trips projected for 2025, growing to 150M+ in 2026 (UNWTO forecast).
• 9-day Spring Festival holiday: the longest in recent history.
• October 2025 outbound bookings: +28% year-on-year, already above 2019 pre-pandemic levels.
• 70%+ of Chinese travelers use WeChat Pay or Alipay for transactions abroad.
• Premium travel spend up 74% for National Day 2025 versus 2024.

The 2026 calendar gives you two major outbound windows and two secondary ones. Each has a preparation phase that starts 3-4 months before the holiday itself. If you’re in tourism, the plan for CNY 2026 starts this quarter. If you’re in supply chain, the plan for avoiding CNY disruption starts in October.

Our full services for tourism businesses, from Xiaohongshu setup to KOL campaign management, are listed on our services page.

About Alex — Based in Shanghai since 2015. Runs tourism marketing campaigns across Douyin, Xiaohongshu and WeChat. Once convinced a Swiss spa hotel to open a RED account. It worked.