Chinese New Year 2027 Factory Shutdown: When to Place Your Order

Chinese New Year falls on 6 February 2027. Most Chinese factories will be closed from around 5 to 12 February, and most will not be running at full speed again until mid March. If you want a production run finished and on the water before that happens, you need to place the order and clear the deposit between early October and early November 2026.

Not December. The queue fills long before the holiday does.

There is a second thing worth knowing. Chinese New Year 2027 is eleven days earlier than it was in 2026. Anyone who plans this year off last year's calendar is already eleven days late.

When is Chinese New Year 2027?

The date is Saturday 6 February 2027. It is the Year of the Fire Goat.

The official public holiday runs 5 to 12 February, eight days. That number is misleading and it is the number most founders plan around. The Lantern Festival on 20 February is the informal end of the season, and plenty of smaller factories treat it that way.

How long do Chinese factories actually close?

The official closure is eight days. The real disruption is four to six weeks.

Output does not stop on a Thursday and restart on a Monday. It ramps down and it ramps back up, and both ends are slower than the calendar suggests.

The ramp down:

• Two weeks out, output sits at roughly 80 percent of normal
• One week out, around 60 percent
• The final three or four days, 30 to 40 percent
• Holiday eve, under 20 percent

Then the closure itself, 5 to 12 February, plus another three to five days at most factories.

The ramp back up:

• First week back, 40 to 60 percent capacity
• Weeks two and three, 60 to 80 percent
• Week four, close to normal

Practically, that is late January through early March. Six weeks where your order either does not move or moves badly.

When do you need to place your order?

Work backwards from the date you want stock in your warehouse, not forwards from today.

Three rough targets:

• Stock in your warehouse by end of February 2027. Production complete by 10 January. Vessel departing 8 to 10 January.
• Stock by mid March 2027. Production complete late January. Shipped by 24 January.
• Stock end of March or later. Let it fall on the other side. Production resumes after the holiday, shipping around 20 March.

For anything in the first two rows, the order goes in between October and early November 2026.

A worked example

Say you want stock in the warehouse on 1 March 2027. Sixty day production lead time, sea freight to Sydney, one SKU you have made before.

• Seven days from port to your warehouse, so the vessel needs to arrive by 22 February
• Twenty five days sailing, so it leaves China around 28 January
• That date is inside the worst week of the year to be booking space. Pull the departure forward to 10 January
• Goods at the port five to seven days before that, so production finishes by 3 January
• Sixty days of production, so the line starts 4 November 2026
• Deposit cleared and materials booked a week before that, so 28 October
• Sample approval before the deposit. Two rounds at ten to fourteen days each, plus courier both ways, so allow six weeks

That puts final sample sign off in mid September 2026.

Which is now. That is the point of doing the arithmetic. The deadline that feels like it is in February is actually in September, and it is the sampling stage that eats it. If your lead times are longer than sixty days, pull every date above further forward. Our guide to how long it takes to manufacture a product has realistic ranges by category.

Why the last two weeks before the shutdown are the worst time to be in production

Most founders assume the risk is the closure. The risk is the fortnight before it.

Workers are paid their annual bonus just before the holiday. Roughly a third of them do not come back afterwards, which means a large share of the workforce on your order in late January is working their last shifts and knows it.

Factories also overbook that window. Every client wants their goods out before the break, so the floor is running more orders than it can finish. Yours becomes the one that gets pushed if it is the smallest, the newest, or the one whose deposit landed last.

And the penalty for slipping is not measured in days. If your run slips 48 hours in late January, it does not finish in early February. It finishes in mid March.

This is also why your payment terms matter more in this window than any other. A deposit that clears on time is the cheapest insurance available. We cover the structures that work in factory payment terms explained.

What happens to quality after the holiday?

The factory that ships your March order is not quite the same factory that quoted you in October.

With turnover running around a third, the line in late February is full of new hires. Quality issues spike in the first two to three weeks back, and they show up in the boring places: finish, tolerance on parts nobody inspects, assembly consistency.

Two rules that hold up well:

• Do not let a first production run, a new mould, or a spec change be the first job a factory does after Chinese New Year. Give them something they have made before while the line settles.
• Book a third party inspection on anything produced between mid February and mid March, even with a factory you trust. Our pre-shipment inspection guide covers what to check and when.

What the shutdown does to your freight

Ocean freight peak season runs September to January, which means the pre holiday rush sits inside it rather than beside it.

What that looks like in practice on the China to Australia lane:

• Rates climb 20 to 40 percent through the peak months, with congestion and peak season surcharges on top
• Normal transit is 18 to 30 days. In peak season, add five to ten
• LCL runs 20 to 35 days and carries more delay risk, because consolidation hubs are the first thing to back up
• Book FCL space three to four weeks ahead. Book LCL earlier than that

Then rates fall away during the closure, because nothing is shipping, and the backlog hits in late February.

None of this is a reason to panic. It is a reason to put the surcharge in your costings before you set a price rather than after. If you have not built the model, start with how to calculate landed cost per unit.

How much extra stock should you carry through the gap?

The sourcing answer is simple. Cover 60 to 90 days of sales, because that is the size of the hole.

The harder question is whether your business can afford to have that much cash sitting in a warehouse for a quarter. That is not a sourcing decision, it is a cash flow decision, and it belongs on the other side of the desk. Kristy covers it on her own site in how to manage cash flow in a product business, and there is a companion piece on how much stock to order for your first production run.

Get the number from the calendar. Get permission for it from your bank balance.

Does the same thing happen in India?

Yes, on a different calendar, and that difference is more useful than most people realise.

Diwali falls on 8 November 2026. Most Indian factories close for around a week, and in the northern manufacturing belts it often stretches longer. Jaipur and the Delhi NCR hubs run quiet either side of it. There are also regional holidays through the year that do not appear on any Western planning calendar, so you ask rather than assume.

Here is the part worth acting on. Diwali and Chinese New Year do not collide. An Indian supplier is running normally in February while China is dark, and a Chinese supplier is running normally in November. For a business carrying real stock risk, that is a genuine argument for a second country, and it is a supply chain argument rather than a price one.

If you are weighing it up, China vs India: which country should you manufacture in compares the two on cost, categories and lead times.

Your ten week checklist

Working back from a 10 January shipment:

• By mid September. Final sample signed off in writing, with photos of the approved sample held by both sides.
• By end September. Purchase order issued, spec locked. No changes after this without moving the completion date.
• By early October. Deposit paid and confirmed received, not just sent.
• Mid October. If you are going to Canton Fair, this is the trip where new supplier conversations still have time to turn into a pre holiday order. Check which phase your category sits in first.
• By early November. Production start confirmed in writing with a completion date.
• Early December. Mid production check. Not an email asking how it is going. Photos of work in progress.
• By early January. Pre-shipment inspection booked and freight space booked.
• 10 January. On the water.

The one thing most founders get wrong

They accept "before Chinese New Year" as an answer.

It is not a date. It is a hope, and in December it is a hope shared by every other customer that factory has.

Ask for a completion date. Get it in writing. Ask what happens if it moves, and ask before you pay the deposit rather than after, because that is the only moment you have leverage. A factory that gives you a real date in October is telling you something true about its capacity. A factory that will not is also telling you something true.

Where this fits if you are heading to China

Source Haus is in China in October for Canton Fair Phases Two and Three, which lands inside the window this article is about. If you are placing a pre holiday order with a new supplier, meeting them in person eight weeks before production starts is the difference between a date you can plan on and a date you are guessing at. Our breakdown of which Canton Fair phase to attend is the place to start.

If you want someone to look at your timeline, your quotes or your production dates before you commit, email kristy@sourcehaus.co or book a sourcing call. Bring your target in-warehouse date and we will work backwards with you.