Planning China Imports Around Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year, called the Spring Festival in China, moves by a few weeks from one year to the next. For importers it is still easy to plan for. Factories work normally in January and pick production back up after the holidays. In the days around the festival there can be delays, because workers travel and suppliers and forwarders work differently from the rest of the year. If you plan backwards from your selling date and put buffer in the right places, these weeks are manageable. This guide applies to any year. The specific dates and deadlines for the next festival are in our article on Chinese New Year 2027.

When is Chinese New Year and how long are the holidays?

The festival follows the Chinese lunar calendar and always falls on a day between 21 January and 20 February. Officially there is about a week off, a day or two more in some years. The exact days off and the make-up working days, which are often moved onto a weekend, are set by China’s State Council each year. The 2026 schedule, for example, was published on 4 November 2025. So you know the date of the festival well in advance, but usually only learn the individual days off in the autumn before.

Does production in China continue in January and February?

Yes. Factories run as usual in January and resume production after the holidays. The common belief that little gets done in China from January to March is not accurate. Pushing an order back to spring for that reason only costs you time.

Delays happen in the days immediately around the festival. Many workers travel to their families, often across the country. Smaller suppliers sometimes close a few days early or reopen a little later. Forwarders, ports and trucking are very busy before the festival. Export shipments that fall into the days off often only leave afterwards.

Why do delays usually come from suppliers?

A garment is rarely made in a single business. The fabric comes from a knitting or weaving mill and is often dyed at a separate dye house. Printing and embroidery are frequently done by a specialist workshop nearby. Woven labels, hangtags and polybags come from other small firms. At the end a truck takes the cartons to the forwarder. If one of these businesses closes early before the festival, the whole order waits.

Our network includes, for example, garment makers who sew in house and pass the embroidery on to a small embroidery shop with its own machines. That shop has its own holiday schedule, which may differ from the sewing factory’s. Our team in China therefore checks with every business your order depends on, including the embroiderer, the printer and the label maker.

How do you plan a China import backwards from the selling date?

The starting point is the day you want to sell the goods or deliver them to your own customers. From there you work back step by step until you know when the sample has to be approved. The times below are guide values. Real times depend on the item, quantity, fabric and decoration and are worked out for each order.

• Goods receipt: a few days of reserve before the selling date, plus check-in time for Amazon FBA
• Transport to your address, delivery DDP: sea freight 50 to 65 days, air freight about 15 days
• Final inspection by our team, packing and pick-up at the factory: about one week
• Bulk production: three days to four weeks depending on the item
• Sourcing fabric and trims: often one to two weeks, longer for custom-dyed fabric
• Making the sample and sending it to you by express, then your written approval

Then lay the festival over this plan. What matters is which step the holidays fall into.

• The goods are already at sea: no problem. The ship keeps sailing through the holidays.
• Production ends just before the festival: risky. If the final inspection or pick-up slips into the days around the holidays, departure moves. This is where the buffer belongs.
• Production starts after the festival: easy to plan, provided the sample is approved and fabric and trims were ordered before the holidays.

Most plans end up as one of two options. Either the goods are finished, inspected and booked a few days before the festival, or production deliberately starts after the holidays with all materials already at the factory. Trouble starts when a plan runs right up to the last working day before the festival.

Why does sample approval have to happen before the holidays?

No bulk run starts without an approved sample. We always charge for samples and sample shipping, you know the amount beforehand, and production only begins after your written approval. Around the festival every correction round takes longer than usual. A sample that needs rework shortly before the holidays may only come back after them.

So approve the sample early enough that a second round would still fit before the festival. Agree in advance who signs off on your side and by when. An approval that sits unanswered for a week hurts most right before the festival. The approved sample helps afterwards too: if a sewing line comes back with partly new staff, the reference sample is the standard everyone works to. How sampling works is described on the sampling page. For new cuts, shape, colour and logo positions can be agreed digitally first, see 3D sampling for apparel.

When do fabric and trims need to be ordered?

Before the holidays. Material is often the real bottleneck before the festival, since a reserved production line is of little use if the fabric is missing. Stock fabric in common colours usually arrives quickly. Custom-dyed fabric, zips in special colours or woven labels have their own lead times. Producers generally only order material once the contract and deposit are in place. With us that is 60 % on signing the contract and the remaining 40 % after the shipping document. If you want production before the festival, do not leave the contract until the last few days.

What happens to freight space and rates around the festival?

In the weeks before the festival many importers want to get their goods out of China. Freight space gets tighter, containers and air capacity are booked up earlier, and rates can rise. Scheduling departure just before the holidays puts you in the middle of that rush.

Plan an earlier departure, or deliberately one after the festival. If the selling date is fixed, part of the order can go by air to cover the first weeks while the rest follows by sea. The trade-off is explained in sea freight or air freight. How we organise transport and delivery is on the shipping page.

What should you have confirmed before the festival?

• Material available or ordered, with a delivery date to the factory
• Planned production start and a realistic completion date
• Last working day before the festival and first day back, including the embroiderer, printer and label maker
• Dates for the inspections during and after production
• Pick-up date at the factory and a booked departure

Have each of these points confirmed separately. A general “it will be ready on time” tells you nothing about whether the fabric is already at the factory. After the festival, production status and dates are checked again before you commit to anything with your customers.

Should quality control be cut short before the festival?

No. As standard, our team in China inspects twice on site at the producer, once during and once after production, before the goods ship. Just before the festival it is tempting to drop the second inspection so the goods still make the vessel. A defect that only shows up in Europe usually costs more time and money than a week’s delay. If the final inspection no longer fits before the holidays, a later departure is usually the better choice. Our quality control page explains how we inspect.

How does communication work around the festival?

You have one European contact who knows your schedule. Before the festival we tell you which dates are confirmed and what is still open. Our team in China knows the producers personally and can check progress on site at any time. If something shifts, we get in touch on our own and say plainly what it means for your date. We give realistic delivery dates and do everything we can to meet them.

Does the same apply to other Chinese holidays?

Yes, on a smaller scale. The week around National Day on 1 October, known as Golden Week, works in a similar way: factories and embroidery shops take a break, courier shipments wait until afterwards, and forwarders get busy beforehand. Labour Day in May also brings several days off. All holidays for the coming year are listed in Chinese New Year 2027.

Our process page shows the route from enquiry to delivery. If you are planning for next season, send us the item, quantity and target date via contact. We will work the plan backwards with you and tell you honestly which date is realistic.