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Business Day Calculator

China Business Day Calculator

Last reviewed: October 14, 2026 · Holiday data: October 7, 2026

Calculate working days in China with the closure dates of the General Office of the State Council's holiday notices preselected, the Spring Festival and National Day blocks among them. The data follows the notices for 2024 to 2026, issued on 25 October 2023, 12 November 2024 and 4 November 2025. The calculator counts Monday to Friday only: the 6 Saturdays and Sundays that the 2026 notice marks as working days in exchange are not counted as business days.

How China Business Days Are Defined

The calculator counts Monday to Friday and leaves out the closure dates in its data. Article 7 of the State Council's Provisions on the Working Hours of Employees (国务院关于职工工作时间的规定, as amended in 1995) makes Saturday and Sunday the weekly rest days of state organs and public institutions, and says that enterprises, and public institutions that cannot keep those uniform hours, may arrange their weekly rest days flexibly according to their circumstances. Article 3 of the implementing measures for state organs and public institutions repeats the Saturday and Sunday rule. Two instruments set the holidays. The State Council's holiday Measures (全国年节及纪念日放假办法), as revised by State Council Order No. 795 with effect from 1 January 2025, give all citizens thirteen days off across the year in article 2, and article 7 allows those days to be arranged into longer breaks by moving rest days. For each of the years 2024 to 2026 the General Office of the State Council issued a notice, approved by the State Council, with that year's arrangement: the days taken off and the Saturdays and Sundays worked in exchange. The dates this calculator uses are the closure dates of those notices.

The make-up days are where calendars part. The 2026 notice marks 6 days as working days (上班), 4 Saturdays and 2 Sundays. This calculator counts none of them, so a calendar that follows the notice has 6 more working days in 2026 than the 242 business days the calculator counts for that year. The Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges publish their own closure schedules: for 2026 both list the same 7 closure blocks as the notice and call each of the 6 make-up days a weekend closure (周末休市), so for 2026 the calculator's count is also the two exchanges' count of trading days.

Sources for these rules

Checked October 13, 2026. All sources

China Public Holidays

The days off that article 2 of the Measures gives all citizens, before any yearly arrangement:

  • New Year's Day (1 day, 1 January)
  • Spring Festival (4 days: Lunar New Year's Eve and the first to third days of the first lunar month)
  • Qingming Festival (1 day, the day of Qingming; in the article's words, 农历清明当日)
  • Labour Day (2 days, 1 and 2 May)
  • Dragon Boat Festival (1 day, the day of the festival in the lunar calendar)
  • Mid-Autumn Festival (1 day, the day of the festival in the lunar calendar)
  • National Day (3 days, 1 to 3 October)

Thirteen days in total. The longer closures come from each year's notice and are not in the Measures: in this data the Spring Festival block is 8, 8 and 9 days long in 2024, 2025 and 2026 and the National Day block 7, 8 and 7. For 2026 the notice gave 9 days at Spring Festival (15 to 23 February) and 7 at National Day (1 to 7 October), and 4 of the year's 6 make-up working days stand beside those two blocks. The 2026 notice does not use the term Golden Week; this page's title uses it for those two blocks. How we determine holidays →

Sources for these dates

Checked October 13, 2026. All sources

Pair these tools with China supply-chain workflows

The length of the closure blocks is set by each year's notice, so plan from the dates and not from a fixed length. In 2026 the calculator skips 6 Monday-to-Friday days for the Spring Festival block and 5 for the National Day block. The Project Deadline Calculator places each phase of a timeline around the same closure dates once China is selected as its holiday calendar.

Sources and verification

Official source: State Council of the People's Republic of China (gov.cn) (opens in a new tab)

Cross-checked against this source on October 7, 2026.

See all official sources →

For informational purposes only

This calculator provides general estimates based on business day counting rules. It does not constitute legal advice. Deadlines in legal, regulatory, or contractual matters may be subject to jurisdiction-specific rules, court orders, or statutory exceptions. Always verify critical deadlines with a qualified professional.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which holidays are included for China?
The calculator preselects the closure dates of the General Office of the State Council's holiday notices, not only the thirteen days of article 2 of the Measures, because the notice sets each year's closure blocks. The data holds 2024 to 2029. The years 2024, 2025 and 2026 were each read against that year's notice, dated 25 October 2023, 12 November 2024 and 4 November 2025. For 2027 to 2029 the data names no notice: those dates are this site's own projections, to be checked against each year's notice once it is issued. The projected Spring Festival blocks are 7 days long, while the principle stated in the 2025 notice is, special cases apart, eight days starting on Lunar New Year's Eve. Under Advanced options you can add custom dates to exclude, for a regional or industry-specific closure that applies to a particular contract.
What is the China workweek?
The calculator counts Monday to Friday as business days for China and leaves out the closure dates in its data. It never counts a Saturday or Sunday, so it does not count the weekend days a notice turns into working days: 6 in 2026, Sunday 4 January, Saturday 14 February, Saturday 28 February, Saturday 9 May, Sunday 20 September and Saturday 10 October. A span that contains one of them comes out one business day short of a calendar that follows the notice. For the whole of 2026 the calculator counts 242 business days (261 Monday-to-Friday days less 19 closure dates that fall on one); with the 6 make-up days, the notice's calendar has 248.
Why do Chinese Golden Week closures shift adjacent weekends?
The statutory days off and each year's closure are set by two different instruments, and the weekend working days come from the second. Article 2 of the State Council's holiday Measures (全国年节及纪念日放假办法), as revised by State Council Order No. 795 with effect from 1 January 2025, gives all citizens thirteen days off across the year: one for New Year's Day, four for Spring Festival, one for the Qingming Festival, two for Labour Day, one for the Dragon Boat Festival, one for the Mid-Autumn Festival and three for National Day. Article 7 allows those days to be arranged into longer breaks by moving rest days. For each of the years 2024 to 2026 the General Office of the State Council issued a notice with that year's arrangement: the days taken off and the Saturdays and Sundays worked in exchange (上班). This calculator counts Monday to Friday and leaves out the closure dates in its data. It never counts a Saturday or Sunday, so it does not count the weekend days a notice turns into working days, and a span that contains one of them comes out one business day short of a calendar that follows the notice. For 2026 the Shanghai Stock Exchange's closing schedule lists each make-up day of that year's notice as a weekend closure (周末休市).
Are Hong Kong and Macau covered by this Chinese calendar?
No. The China data covers the days off arranged under the State Council's holiday Measures (全国年节及纪念日放假办法); Hong Kong and Macau publish holiday lists of their own, and this calculator has no calendar for either. Hong Kong has two lists. The Government's gazetted list of general holidays has 17 dated days for 2026 and 17 for 2027, in addition to every Sunday. The Employment Ordinance (Cap. 57) entitles an employee to statutory holidays: 15 since Easter Monday was added on 1 January 2026, 16 from 2028 with Good Friday and 17 from 2030 with the day following Good Friday. The Government of Macau lists 20 public holidays under Decree Law No. 60/2000 for 2026 and 20 for 2027, ten of them in each year marked as obligatory holidays under article 44 of Law No. 7/2008. For a count in Hong Kong or Macau, add the dates under Advanced options as custom dates to exclude.

Sources for these rules

Checked October 13, 2026. All sources

China working days by month

Working-day counts, calendar grids, and Chinese national holidays for each of the next 13 months.