Chinese Public Holidays 2026: All Dates and Makeup Workdays Explained

The 7 Public Holidays 2026 in the Yearly Calendar

① Regional Holidays: Xinjiang, Tibet, Yunnan, Hong Kong & Macau

Besides the 7 nationwide holidays, individual regions set their own, additional holidays. Toggle them on individually in the calendar below – useful if your route runs through one of these regions.

These holidays don't apply nationwide, only in the named region – the legal basis is a decision by the respective autonomous region or special administrative region, not the nationwide State Council announcement above. In Xinjiang, Tibet and Xishuangbanna they primarily apply to government offices, schools and state-owned enterprises in that region – private shops, restaurants and long-distance transport mostly keep running as normal. Hong Kong and Macau, as special administrative regions, have their own, legally separate holiday calendar unrelated to the State Council announcement.

② Makeup Workdays: why some weekends are working days (调休 / diàoxiū)

China only grants 13 real statutory days off per year nationwide. To still create long, continuous blocks like the nine-day Spring Festival or the National Day Golden Week, the State Council shifts individual weekend days: a Saturday or Sunday before or after the actual holiday is declared a regular working day, so that an extra day off is "collected" elsewhere. The result is a calendar where, say, a Sunday is a working day while the following Monday is off – confusing at first glance for many European travelers.

What matters for travelers: this mainly affects offices, government agencies, schools, and banks. Trains, airports, restaurants, shops, and attractions run normally on makeup workdays – but anyone contacting a Chinese company or government office should treat these days like regular working days.

Public holidays: official State Council announcement, applies nationwide. School holidays: official school calendars from the respective city/provincial education authority, for compulsory-education levels (primary/middle school) – senior high schools (普通高中) can differ by up to a week. The end of each break is the last free day before classes resume (or the explicitly stated end, where the calendar gives one). Cities without 2027 dates haven't published their calendar yet; Hong Kong and Macau aren't listed because each school there sets its own calendar and there is no single official school calendar. The "crowd level" rating in the date check is our own editorial assessment, not a measured occupancy or price statistic.

③ Why Four of the Seven Holidays Shift Dates Every Year

Spring Festival, Qingming Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, and Mid-Autumn Festival follow the traditional Chinese lunar calendar (Qingming, more precisely, a solar term) instead of the Gregorian calendar – so their dates shift by up to four weeks every year. New Year's Day, Labour Day, and National Day, by contrast, have a fixed date (January 1, May 1, October 1). That's why the State Council can only confirm a given year's exact holiday arrangement shortly beforehand.

The State Council traditionally doesn't publish the following year's holiday schedule until November or December of the prior year. For 2027, no official announcement is available yet (as of 1 August 2026); it's expected to be published in late 2026. The dates of some of the underlying festivals are already known (without the later holiday-block/makeup-workday fine-tuning): Chinese New Year on 6 February 2027, Mid-Autumn Festival on 15 September 2027, and National Day, as every year, on 1 October.

④ What This Means for Your Trip Planning

⑤ Western Holidays That Are Not Days Off in China

If you're used to certain days being quiet for business, note that on the Chinese mainland, these days are not:

A practical side effect: traveling to China over Christmas or Easter puts you in a completely normal, low-key tourist off-season without holiday crowds – unlike Hong Kong and Macau, where those exact days are public holidays with correspondingly more going on (see the calendar above).

FAQ

Sources

• 国务院办公厅关于2026年部分节假日安排的通知 (State Council, 4 November 2025)
• 铁路旅客运输规程 – presale window (China State Railway Group, 12306)
• 全国年节及纪念日放假办法 (State Council, Ministry of Justice legal database)
• Xinjiang: holiday arrangements for Corban and Rouzi festivals 2026
• Tibet Autonomous Region: holiday arrangements for Spring Festival/Losar 2026
• Xishuangbanna: programme & holiday arrangements for the Water-Splashing Festival 2026
• GovHK: General Holidays 2026 (Hong Kong)
• Macau Government: Public Holidays 2026