Chinese New Year 2027: the last safe days to ship from China to the USA

When is Chinese New Year 2027?

Chinese New Year follows the lunar calendar, so it moves every year. In 2027 the first day of the lunar year is Saturday 6 February 2027. Since 2025 China's national holiday rules give the Spring Festival four statutory days, New Year's Eve and days one to three, which puts the statutory break at Friday 5 February to Monday 8 February 2027. The State Council then adds bridging days and make-up working days in a yearly notice; for scale, the 2026 block ran nine days. Until the 2027 notice is out, treat the four statutory days as the floor, not the full break.

The rows marked SEKO come from SEKO Logistics' Lunar New Year 2027 planning guide, which our calendar cites. They describe a typical year, not a rule every factory follows. Your own supplier's dates are the ones that count, and they can be earlier or later than any of these.

Why factories stop earlier and restart later than the official days

Golden Week stops China for a week. Chinese New Year stops most factories for about two weeks and slows them for weeks on either side, and the reasons are the same every year.

• Workers go home. A large share of factory workers come from other provinces, and New Year is the one time in the year many of them see their families. Train and bus tickets for the travel rush (chunyun) sell out early, so workers leave days or weeks before the statutory start.
• Factories finish orders, not lines. A factory that cannot start a new production run before its workers leave will not start one. In practice the last date to place a production order falls well before the holiday, and SEKO's guide puts it 8 to 10 weeks ahead.
• Suppliers of the suppliers close first. Fabric mills, packaging printers and component makers shut down on their own calendars, so a factory can run out of cartons or labels before it runs out of workers.
• Everyone ships in the same weeks. Trucks, warehouses, export clearance and space on flights and vessels are all busiest in the last weeks before the break, which is why rates tend to rise and space gets tight from December.
• The restart is slow. Workers return over several weeks, often after the Lantern Festival on the fifteenth day of the new year. Some do not return to the same employer at all, and a factory that has to hire and train new staff runs below capacity well into March.

None of this means your supplier is unreliable. It means a ready date given in October for an order finishing in late January is a hope, not a plan, until the factory confirms who will be on the line.

The last safe days to ship before Chinese New Year 2027

We worked these dates back from two anchors and our own transit times: 6 to 12 working days for air door to door, 10 to 14 days for air consolidation and 28 to 32 days for sea door to door. The first anchor is Saturday 30 January, when SEKO expects the full factory shutdown to start clustering. The second is the first statutory day, Friday 5 February. Each date is the latest working day cartons can leave our warehouse and still be delivered to a US door before the anchor, even at the slow end of the transit range.

How to read the table:

• The left date column is the safe one. Inland trucking, export processing and the supplier's own staff thin out from the end of January, so a shipment still moving through China then risks waiting. The right column is the last date that still beats the statutory days, with no margin.
• We use the whole transit range because our transit runs from our warehouse to your door and we do not split it into a China leg and a US leg here. A shipment that leaves on the date shown can arrive earlier; the date only makes sure it is not still on the way when China stops. That is also why these dates sit earlier than the sail-by dates in forwarder guides (SEKO's, quoted on our calendar, has ocean cargo sailing by mid to late January): a sail-by date counts to the vessel leaving China, ours count to delivery at your door.
• The date is when cartons leave our warehouse, not when your supplier sends them. Before that day the cartons have to reach the warehouse by domestic courier, be weighed and measured, and the invoice has to be paid by bank transfer in US dollars. Leave room for all three.
• These are planning dates worked out from public holiday dates and our published transit times. They are not our warehouse's closing date. Our warehouse publishes its own closing and reopening days closer to the holiday, and we follow its notice, not the public calendar. Any offer for cargo that would move during the break includes the holiday in its transit estimate.

Air door to door covers shipments up to 20 kg with US duty inside the price. Heavier air goes by air consolidation, where US duty is paid at import. We quote sea from 10 kg, and sea has the earliest deadline by far: Mon 28 Dec 2026 to clear the wider shutdown, so the cartons need to be at the warehouse, weighed and paid, before then.

Working back from your own ready date

The table gives you the end of the chain. Planning starts at the other end, with the factory. A simple way to check whether an order will make it:

• Ask the supplier, in writing, for the date the goods will be finished and packed, and for the days the factory itself will close and reopen. Ask whether the ready date assumes workers who are leaving early for the holiday.
• Add the domestic courier leg from the factory to our warehouse. Your supplier sends the cartons there; that leg is arranged on the China side and is not part of our price. It also gets slower in January, when every factory is shipping at once.
• Add a margin for the weigh-in and for your bank transfer to arrive. Nothing ships before the invoice is paid, so a transfer sent on a Friday afternoon your time moves the whole shipment.
• Compare the result with the table. If it lands after the left column, you are relying on the last days before the break, which is exactly when trucks, warehouses and flights are fullest.

Paperwork matters more than usual. A carton that reaches the warehouse without a clear commercial invoice or packing list in the last days before the break can wait until after it. If your supplier wants the balance before releasing the goods, pay it early: Chinese banks observe the holiday too. Our guide to payment terms with Chinese suppliers covers the usual deposit and balance pattern.

Air or sea for a pre-holiday shipment

Sea is usually much cheaper per kilogram, but before Chinese New Year its long transit works against it: the sea deadline falls well before the air deadline. If production finishes after the sea date in the table, air is what is left. Our air vs sea guide explains the trade-off in general; around this holiday the calendar decides most of it.

A split often works. Send the units you need to keep selling through February and March by air, and the rest by sea, either before the break if it is ready in time or after the restart if it is not. You pay air rates only on the part where speed earns them.

If you sell on Amazon, check your own receiving cut-offs as well. FBA and many 3PLs have their own holiday-season windows, and stock that arrives in the US in time can still sit in a receiving queue.

If your goods will miss the window

Plenty of orders miss it. What helps is deciding the plan before the break rather than on the first day back.

• Ask the supplier to finish and pack everything before the factory closes, even if the cartons will only move after the holiday. Packed cartons ship on the first days back; half-finished goods wait for the workers who have not returned.
• Do not pay for a rush that cannot land. Squeezing goods out on the last working day only helps if every step after it, courier, warehouse and flight, can move them that day too.
• Plan the restart realistically. SEKO's guide expects factories back with part of their workforce from about 20 February and at normal capacity only in March. Expect backlogs at forwarders and carriers in the first weeks back.
• Tell us the new ready date before the holiday. We quote on the date your supplier gives you in writing, and the offer reflects the holiday if the shipment would move during it.
• Cargo handled inside a holiday window can cost more on the China side, because Chinese labour law requires premium pay for holiday work. If your shipment would move during the break, the offer says so; cargo that moves outside it is quoted at the normal rate.

Missing the window is a timing problem, not a crisis. A shipment that leaves in early March with a clear plan usually lands earlier than one that was rushed out in late January and caught the backlog on the way.

What it costs, and how booking works

We move shipments from 100 g to 2,000 kg from China to US doors. Air door to door up to 20 kg includes US customs clearance and duty, so nothing is collected at your door: $111.05 for 5 kg and $419.49 for 20 kg of general goods. The prices below were set by our engine on 2026-10-28 and include the carriers' Black Friday peak season surcharge on air door to door, which applies while that peak lasts. Your own price for your goods, weight and ZIP code shows on screen through the quote form.

Booking before the holiday follows the same four steps as any other time of year:

• Book the option you want: the Book button under the price, or reply to the offer email with the option name.
• We email you our China warehouse address and a carton mark. Your supplier sends the cartons there by domestic courier; that courier leg is arranged on the China side and is not part of our price.
• We weigh and measure the cartons. If the chargeable weight is within 5% of what you entered, your price stands. If not, you see the weigh ticket and the new number before anything moves.
• You get one invoice and pay by bank transfer in US dollars. Then the cartons ship and you get tracking.

Nothing is paid before step 4. Before this holiday, the useful habit is to book as soon as your supplier gives you a ready date, so the warehouse address and carton mark are with the supplier before the January rush.