China Public Holidays 2026: Dates, Golden Week, and Working Days

Key Takeaways

• China has seven public holiday breaks in 2026, covering 33 calendar days off: Jan 1 to 3, Feb 15 to 23, Apr 4 to 6, May 1 to 5, Jun 19 to 21, Sep 25 to 27, and Oct 1 to 7.
  
  
• Two of those are Golden Weeks. Spring Festival runs nine days, Feb 15 to 23, and National Day runs seven days, Oct 1 to 7. The May break is five days, which is long but is not usually counted as a Golden Week.
  
  
• Six weekend dates become working days in 2026: Jan 4, Feb 14, Feb 28, May 9, Sep 20, and Oct 10. They are ordinary workdays for attendance and pay, not overtime.
  
  
• Only 13 of the 33 days off are statutory holidays. Those 13 are the days that carry the 300% overtime rate, and time off in lieu cannot be used instead of the money.
  
  
• Once the adjustments net out, 2026 has 248 working days, matching the national standard of 248 a year (20.67 a month) set by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security. The 21.75-day divisor for daily and hourly pay is a separate figure, because paid statutory holidays are not deducted from it.

1. China’s 2026 Public Holidays: The Short Answer

China has seven public holiday breaks in 2026, running Jan 1 to 3, Feb 15 to 23, Apr 4 to 6, May 1 to 5, Jun 19 to 21, Sep 25 to 27, and Oct 1 to 7. That is 33 calendar days off in total.

Six weekend dates are pulled back as working days to pay for the longer breaks: Jan 4, Feb 14, Feb 28, May 9, Sep 20, and Oct 10.

All of it comes from a single document, the State Council General Office notice on the 2026 holiday arrangements (Guobanfamingdian [2025] No. 7), published on November 4, 2025. Every break date and make-up workday on this page is taken from that notice.

The rest of this guide covers the full calendar, the six make-up workdays, the 13 days that count as statutory holidays for overtime pay, and the working-day total for the year. If you run payroll or plan coverage in China, the make-up workdays and the statutory-day list are the two parts that change what you pay.

2. The Official 2026 Public Holiday Calendar in China

Below is the 2026 calendar exactly as the State Council General Office set it. Weekdays are the ones printed in the notice itself, so they can be relied on for scheduling.

Sources: break dates and make-up workdays from the State Council General Office 2026 holiday notice, published November 4, 2025 (State Council Gazette 2025 No. 32). Statutory-day counts from Article 2 of the Measures on National Annual Festivals and Commemoration Day Holidays, as amended by State Council Decree No. 795 of November 10, 2024, in force from January 1, 2025.

The six make-up workdays in 2026

A make-up workday is a Saturday or Sunday that the State Council designates as a normal working day, which is how Spring Festival’s four-day statutory entitlement becomes a nine-day break. There are six of them in 2026, and they are a common source of scheduling and payroll mistakes for teams based outside China.

On those six dates, offices, banks, and government departments in mainland China are open. Employees work a standard day at standard pay. No overtime premium is owed unless daily or weekly hour limits are exceeded, and a payroll system that flags them as weekend work will overpay.

3. Which 2026 Days Count as Statutory Holidays

Whether a day off is a statutory holiday or a rest day sets the overtime rate for working it. A nine-day Spring Festival break is not nine statutory holidays. Under Article 2 of the Measures on National Annual Festivals and Commemoration Day Holidays, as amended by State Council Decree No. 795, China has 13 statutory holiday days a year. The rest of any break is made up of ordinary rest days and shifted weekends.

Mapping those 13 days onto the 2026 calendar gives this:

The lunar and solar-term dates in that table are taken from the Hong Kong Observatory’s Gregorian-Lunar Calendar Conversion Table for 2026, which places the first day of the first lunar month on February 17, the Qingming solar term on April 5, the fifth day of the fifth lunar month on June 19, and the 15th day of the eighth lunar month on September 25.

Work done on any of those 13 days is paid at no less than 300% of the normal wage, and it cannot be settled with time off instead. Work done on the other 20 days off, which are rest days, is paid at no less than 200% only where no compensatory rest day is given.

4. How Many Working Days China Has in 2026

China has 248 working days in 2026. Here is the arithmetic, which shows how the six make-up workdays change the total:

• 365 calendar days, less 104 Saturdays and Sundays, gives 261 nominal working days.
  
  
• Of the 33 days off, 19 fall on weekdays. Taking those out leaves 242.
  
  
• Adding back the six make-up workdays gives 248 working days.

That figure matches the national standard exactly. The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security sets annual working days at 365 less 104 rest days less 13 statutory holidays, which is 248, and monthly working days at 20.67. Those numbers changed on January 1, 2025, when the ministry issued Renshebufa [2025] No. 2 and repealed the 2008 notice that had been used for the previous 17 years. The old monthly figure was 20.83 days, calculated on 11 statutory holidays rather than 13.

The monthly paid-day divisor did not change. It stays at 21.75 days, because statutory holidays are paid whether or not they are worked, so they are not stripped out when a monthly salary is converted to a daily or hourly rate.

5. Planning Around Spring Festival and Golden Week

China has a distinctive working culture, and the main thing to plan for around its holidays is reduced operating capacity. The calendar shifts workdays, compresses lead times, and changes payroll exposure, so getting ahead of it avoids both coverage gaps and avoidable compliance costs.

• Focus on the two long breaks. Spring Festival (Feb 15 to 23) and National Day (Oct 1 to 7) are the longest breaks of the year, at nine and seven days. Plan as if capacity tightens across vendors, logistics, banking, and government processing, and lock critical deliverables before each one.
  
  
• The Spring Festival slowdown is longer than nine days. Many factories and vendors stand down well beyond the official break, so disruption starts before it and continues after it. Build buffer time into cross-border commitments and be explicit with stakeholders about what pauses and what continues.
  
  
• Make-up workdays fall on weekends. Feb 14 and Feb 28 are working Saturdays, which means your China team is available on days your other offices are not. Publish the adjusted schedule early so shifts are not missed and attendance records stay accurate.
  
  
• Move payroll cutoffs earlier in January, February, April, May, September, and October. Under Article 7 of the Interim Provisions on Payment of Wages, when a payday falls on a public holiday or rest day, wages must be paid on the nearest working day before it. Approvals, bank processing, and exception handling should not collide with a closure. One internal deadline for managers and vendors helps prevent late pay.

Running a holiday operating mode

We find it helps to treat Spring Festival and Golden Week as a temporary operating mode with explicit decision rights: what can pause, what must stay covered, and who approves exceptions. Before the break starts, it is also worth agreeing on a short priority list for the first day back, so the team knows which work to clear first.

6. Employer Obligations Under China’s Labor Law

The 2026 calendar feeds directly into wage cost, overtime calculation, payroll timing, and recordkeeping. The obligations below are the ones that come up every year.

• Holiday pay. Statutory public holidays are paid days off, so employees receive wages whether or not they work. Where they do work, Article 44 of the Labour Law of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) requires no less than 300% of the normal wage. Unlike rest-day work, Article 44 gives no time-off alternative for statutory holidays.
  
  
• Make-up workdays. Jan 4, Feb 14, Feb 28, May 9, Sep 20, and Oct 10 are ordinary working days in 2026. Schedule and pay them as such, with overtime rules applying only if daily or weekly hour limits are exceeded.
  
  
• Recordkeeping. Employers must keep a written record of the amount and date of every wage payment, the recipient’s name, and their signature, and keep it for at least two years, under Article 6 of the Interim Provisions on Payment of Wages. A three-year minimum applies where the 2020 regulations on wage payment to migrant workers are in scope.
  
  
• Contributions and withholding. Social insurance contributions still have to be declared and paid, and individual income tax withheld, on the normal schedule. When a break falls in a filing period, the filing deadline is extended by rule, and the tax authority publishes the adjusted dates, so check that year’s tax calendar.
  
  
• Day-type classification. Treating a statutory holiday as a rest day, or a make-up workday as a weekend, produces the wrong wage figure. It is a common cause of back-pay claims tied to the holiday calendar.

The make-up day trap

Payroll systems configured outside China can flag weekend work as overtime. On the six 2026 make-up workdays, it is not. Those days are standard workdays at the standard rate, so an attendance system that treats them as weekend days will overpay everyone who works on them.

7. Payroll and Compliance Considerations

The day type is a common source of payroll problems in China. Statutory holidays, rest days, and workdays, including make-up workdays, each carry different pay rules, and one misclassification can turn into wage adjustments, contribution corrections, and a dispute.

• Build a holiday-aware cutoff calendar. The February and October breaks compress approval cycles and slow bank processing. Set the cutoffs for the whole year in January, before the Spring Festival break.
  
  
• Lock schedules before the make-up days. Working Saturdays generate leave requests and shift swaps. Publishing the schedule early is cheaper than reconciling attendance afterward.
  
  
• Keep the accounting trail. Accounting records are retained either permanently or for a fixed term, and under Article 14 of the Measures for the Administration of Accounting Archives, the fixed terms are generally 10 years and 30 years.

Overtime pay calculation examples (minimums)

To estimate overtime premiums for a monthly-paid employee, convert the monthly salary to an hourly rate using the statutory paid-day divisor of 21.75 days and an 8-hour day, as set by Renshebufa [2025] No. 2:

• Hourly rate: monthly base salary ÷ 21.75 ÷ 8

• Premium pay: hourly rate × overtime hours × multiplier

The multipliers under Article 44 are 150% for overtime on a working day, 200% for work on a rest day where no compensatory rest is given, and 300% for work on a statutory holiday, for which the article gives no time-off alternative.

The examples below use a monthly wage of 10,000 Chinese yuan (CNY). The premium figures show the overtime payment only and do not include the basic wage. 

Note: premium pay above is the minimum overtime payment for the hours worked, calculated from the hourly rate. It excludes the employee’s regular monthly salary.

8. How We Support Employers in China

Hiring and paying people in China gets complicated once statutory holidays, make-up workdays, and day-type pay rules are in the mix. We run the localized human resources (HR) and payroll side so that part stays predictable.

• Employer of Record in China. We hire full-time employees on your behalf without you setting up a local entity. Our Employer of Record service covers contracts, onboarding, and ongoing employment compliance.
  
  
• Payroll compliance. We run payroll, benefits, and taxes with the right calculations province by province, and we track public holidays and make-up workdays so schedules and pay stay aligned when the calendar shifts.
  
  
• Local knowledge. You work with a dedicated account manager, and our China employment guide covers the rules behind the dates on this page.
  
  
• The rest of the region. We work with employers in China and in other Asia-Pacific (APAC) markets, with support for 150+ countries and 130+ currencies. Our 2026 APAC public holiday guide covers five of those markets: Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia.

Getting the 2026 calendar right

China’s 2026 calendar carries two long breaks and six designated make-up workdays. The planning risk is capacity, and the payroll risk is day-type classification, because a wrong day type produces a wrong wage figure and then a wrong contribution and tax position on top of it.

9. Frequently Asked Questions About China’s Public Holidays in 2026 

Q1: When are China’s public holidays in 2026?

There are seven breaks: Jan 1 to 3, Feb 15 to 23 for Spring Festival, Apr 4 to 6 for Qingming, May 1 to 5 for Labor Day, Jun 19 to 21 for Dragon Boat, Sep 25 to 27 for Mid-Autumn, and Oct 1 to 7 for National Day. That is 33 calendar days off, set by the State Council General Office on November 4, 2025.

Q2: When is Golden Week in China in 2026?

There are two. Spring Festival Golden Week runs Feb 15 to 23, nine days. National Day Golden Week runs Oct 1 to 7, seven days. The Labor Day break runs five days, from Friday, May 1, to Tuesday, May 5. It is long, but it is not usually counted as a Golden Week.

Q3: What are the make-up workdays in China in 2026?

Six dates: Jan 4 (Sun), Feb 14 (Sat), Feb 28 (Sat), May 9 (Sat), Sep 20 (Sun), and Oct 10 (Sat). They are ordinary working days at ordinary pay. No overtime premium is owed for working them unless daily or weekly hour limits are exceeded.

Q4: How many working days are there in China in 2026?

248. That is 365 days less 104 weekend days, less the 19 weekdays given off across the seven breaks, plus the six make-up workdays added back. It matches the national standard of 248 annual working days and 20.67 monthly working days used by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security.

Q5: Is Saturday a working day in China?

Not normally. For most employers in mainland China, the standard working week is Monday to Friday, with Saturday and Sunday as rest days. The exception is a designated make-up workday, of which 2026 has six, four on a Saturday and two on a Sunday.

Q6: Which 2026 dates pay triple time in China?

The 13 statutory holiday days: Jan 1, Feb 16 to 19, Apr 5, May 1 and 2, Jun 19, Sep 25, and Oct 1 to 3. Under Article 44 of the PRC Labour Law, work on those days is paid at no less than 300% of the normal wage, and unlike rest-day work, the article gives no time-off alternative for them. The remaining days inside each break are rest days, which carry 200% only where no compensatory rest day is given.

Q7: When does China publish the next year’s holiday calendar?

The General Office of the State Council usually issues it late in the preceding year. The 2026 arrangements were published on November 4, 2025, as Guobanfamingdian [2025] No. 7 and reprinted in State Council Gazette 2025 No. 32.