What stops production, and when
Chinese workshops do not run on your calendar. Two holidays and one shipping season decide whether your goods arrive on time — and all three are predictable a year in advance.
Two rules cover most late orders. First: Spring Festival is not a week, it is four to six weeks of lost capacity — a fortnight of shutdown plus a slow restart. Second: Christmas is not a December problem, it is an August problem, because that is when the containers fill. Everything below is a consequence of those two sentences.
Spring Festival, by year
The date moves because it is the first day of the lunar year. Factories typically close one to two weeks before it and are not fully staffed until two to four weeks after it, so the window that matters is wider than the public holiday.
| Year | First day of the lunar year | Capacity effectively lost |
|---|---|---|
| 2027 | 6 February | Late January to mid March |
| 2028 | 26 January | Mid January to late February |
| 2029 | 13 February | Early February to mid March |
| 2030 | 3 February | Late January to early March |
Dates are the first day of the lunar year. The capacity window is our own working estimate from workshops we deal with, and it varies by region and by how far workers travel home.
The year, month by month
January — the pre-holiday scramble
Everyone is trying to finish before the shutdown. Quotations slow down, small orders get declined, and prices firm up because capacity is spoken for. A workshop that accepts a new order in mid-January is either very quiet or about to be very late.
February — closed, then half-staffed
The shutdown itself, then a slow restart. Workers return over two to four weeks, and workshops often lose people who did not come back. A date promised for late February is usually a date for March.
March — the best month to negotiate
Workshops are back to full strength and the order book is at its thinnest. This is when a small order gets accepted, when a sample is made quickly, and when a price is most likely to be a real price rather than a seasonal one.
April — short break, and the Canton Fair
Qingming is a day or two. The larger effect is the Canton Fair: for two weeks in mid-April the people who decide things are in Guangzhou rather than in the workshop.
May — the last comfortable month
Labour Day takes three to five days. Autumn and Christmas programmes are being briefed now, and workshops still have room. By the end of the month the order book starts to fill.
June — lead times start to stretch
Peak season begins. Quoted production times get longer by a week or two, not because anything changed in the workshop but because the queue did.
July — capacity is committed
Most Christmas production is booked. A new order placed now either pays a premium or takes a slot that was somebody else's cancellation.
August — the container squeeze
The tightest month for ocean freight to Europe and North America. Rates peak, rollovers happen, and a booking made late in the month can miss the sailing. Goods for Christmas must already be in production, ideally already finished.
September — Mid-Autumn, then a push
A short holiday, then everyone tries to clear the floor before the National Day week. Factories run hard and inspections get rushed if you let them.
October — Golden Week
Seven days of national holiday, with a slow week either side. The Canton Fair's second session lands in the same month. Effectively two to three weeks of reduced output.
November — Singles' Day, and the domestic squeeze
11 November is the largest domestic shopping event of the year. Factories with any domestic business are committed to it, packaging materials get expensive and scarce, and export orders sit behind domestic ones.
December — last sailings, then quiet
The final pre-Christmas cut-offs pass in the first half of the month. After mid-December the workshops empty out and the ones that stay open are unusually willing to talk about next year.
Working backwards from a ship date
Production time varies enormously between families, which means the order date varies just as much for the same ship date. The table below works backwards from goods leaving China on 1 November.
| Family | Typical production | Add for a sample | Order by |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paper, print, festival goods | 3–4 weeks | +2 weeks | Late September |
| Ceramics and stone | 5–7 weeks | +3 weeks | Late August |
| Textile and embroidery | 6–10 weeks | +3 weeks | Early August |
| Lacquer and carved wood | 10–16 weeks | +4 weeks | Mid-June |
| Metal and enamelling | 8–14 weeks | +3 weeks | Late June |
Typical ranges, not promises — a specific piece can sit well outside them. The point is the spread: for the same ship date, a lacquer order has to start three months before a print order. Ocean transit adds roughly five weeks to Europe or the US West Coast, plus clearance.
If you take one thing from this page: for goods that must be on a shelf before Christmas, the decision is made in May or June, not in September. Everything that goes wrong in December was decided in the summer.
Tell us the date you need it
Send the shelf date rather than the order date. We will work backwards and tell you whether it is possible before anyone quotes a price.
Send a sourcing request