Chinese New Year 2027 Factory Closure: When to Order Custom Flags

This guide is written for buyers planning spring orders from China: distributors, print resellers and event companies. The dates below come from published government notices and a logistics company’s 2027 planning guide; the order dates are worked out from our own lead times.

What is the latest artwork date for flags, poles and tents before the 2027 closure?

Confirm flag artwork by 20 December 2026, and pole, base and stand artwork by 15 December 2026, to have goods finished by 9 January 2027.

Our production lead times are counted in calendar days from the day you confirm the artwork, and they exclude shipping: 15–20 days for flags and banners, 20–25 days for poles, bases and stands, and 20–30 days for umbrellas and tents. Counting back the longest time in each range from two target dates gives the latest artwork confirmation dates below. The first target is the start of the pre-holiday slowdown in SEKO Logistics’ 2027 estimate (9 January 2027, see the timeline below); the second is the day before its full shutdown begins (29 January 2027).

Lead times in calendar days from artwork confirmation, excluding shipping; artwork dates count back from the finish date.

Plan to the first column. The second leaves no room for a correction to the artwork or a late deposit, and goods finished on 29 January still have to be collected and loaded while forwarders and ports are at their busiest. For a mixed order, such as feather flags with poles and bases, the part with the longest lead time sets the date.

If you want a sample first, start earlier again. A sample takes 5–7 calendar days from artwork confirmation, plus courier time to you and your own time to approve it, and the bulk lead time is then counted from the confirmation that follows. For a flag order finished by 9 January, the sample artwork has to be confirmed by 13 December 2026 at the very latest, and earlier by the courier time and the days you need to approve it.

These dates are worked out from our standard lead times. Before the holiday, many buyers order at once, so take the production date on your quotation as the one that counts, and ask for our 2027 closing and reopening dates when you request it.

When is Chinese New Year 2027, and how long do factories close?

Lunar New Year’s Day is Saturday 6 February 2027, and SEKO expects most factories to stop from about 30 January to 14 February. The Hong Kong government’s list of 2027 general holidays puts Lunar New Year’s Day on Saturday 6 February 2027. Mainland China’s official holiday dates for 2027 had not been published when this guide was written in October 2026. The General Office of the State Council publishes them each year in a notice on the next year’s holidays: the notice for 2026 came out on 4 November 2025, and the one for 2025 on 12 November 2024.

The 2025 notice states the rule: except in special cases, the Spring Festival holiday starts on Chinese New Year’s Eve and runs for 8 days, with weekend working days moved to make up the block. For 2027, New Year’s Eve is Friday 5 February, the last day of the lunar year in the Hong Kong Observatory’s calendar table. The 2026 holiday was one of the exceptions: it ran 9 days, from 15 to 23 February 2026, starting the day before New Year’s Eve (16 February), with Saturdays 14 and 28 February worked instead.

Factories close for longer than the official holiday, because workers travel home before it and come back after it. SEKO Logistics’ 2027 planning guide, published in August 2026, gives this pattern for 2027:

Estimates from SEKO Logistics’ 2027 Chinese New Year planning guide.

These are a planner’s estimates, not official dates, and each factory sets its own closing and reopening days. Ask every supplier for theirs; we give ours on request with the quotation.

How should you book freight around Chinese New Year?

Our lead times stop when the goods are packed, so the freight has to be planned on top of them. SEKO’s guide gives these 2027 timings for shipping out of Asia:

• Ocean freight, full or shared container, should be booked 3–4 weeks before the planned departure.
• Ocean rates usually start to rise in mid-December, as shippers try to move cargo before the shutdowns.
• Capacity is tightest, and the risk of cargo being rolled to a later sailing highest, from about mid-January to late February 2027.
• Air freight should be booked 1–2 weeks before the holiday, which puts the booking in late January 2027.

Put together with the artwork-date table, a flag order with artwork confirmed by 20 December is finished by 9 January, before the tightest period starts, so the forwarder needs the booking request in mid-December, about the time the order is confirmed. An order finished at the end of January leaves the factory in the busiest weeks and may wait for space until after the holiday. Send your forwarder the production date from the quotation as soon as you have it, and ask for the transit time to your port or door; ours is not included in the lead times above.

To work back from the date you need the goods: subtract your forwarder’s transit time and a margin for collection and customs, then the booking lead (3–4 weeks for ocean freight in SEKO’s guide), then our lead time; the result is your latest artwork date.

What should you settle before the cutoff?

A lead time only starts when the artwork is confirmed, so the steps before that point decide whether the dates above hold. For a custom flag order, these are the items to close in the first half of December:

• Final artwork as a vector file with text converted to outlines, or photos large enough for the finished size. Our flag artwork file requirements give the formats and pixel sizes.
• Pantone references for brand colors. We match spot colors to the Pantone numbers you give; if a file has none, the color reference has to be agreed before production.
• Sizes, quantities and finishing for every design, checked against the minimums in our MOQ and lead time guide. Changing a size after confirmation usually means confirming the artwork again, and the lead time then counts from the new date.
• The deposit or payment. Larger orders are usually on a 30% T/T deposit and smaller orders paid in full; the terms are set on the quotation or contract, so allow for bank transfer time before the holiday.
• The shipping method, forwarder and delivery address, so the goods can leave as soon as they are packed.
• The inspection, if a third-party inspector will check the goods. Customers and inspection agencies can book a visit to our factory, including a pre-shipment inspection, and it has to fall between the finish date on the quotation and the forwarder’s collection.

Before production, every order goes through our four checks: artwork, specifications, feasibility and a pre-production confirmation. Quick answers to those checks in December keep the dates in the table.

What happens if you miss the cutoff?

An order whose artwork is confirmed after the last dates in the artwork-date table is made after the holiday. In SEKO’s estimate, factories start reopening only from about 20 February to 6 March 2027, with about 35% of their workforce at first, and are back to full capacity around 6–20 March; SEKO also notes that up to a quarter of factory workers may not return to the same employer after the holiday. If artwork is confirmed on 20 February, our lead times put flags at 7–12 March, poles, bases and stands at 12–17 March, and umbrellas and tents at 12–22 March at the earliest, before shipping; reduced staffing in those weeks can push the dates later.

That matters for anything needed in early spring: flags for a March trade show, banners for a spring sale, or umbrellas and tents for the start of the outdoor season. If the event date is fixed, there are two ways to handle it. Confirm the artwork in December even if the goods are not needed until March, and agree the shipping date on the quotation; or split the order, with the items needed first made before the holiday and the rest after it. Whichever you choose, send the event date with your request so the quotation can be checked against it.

To check your dates against ours, send the products, quantities, sizes and the date you need the goods through our quote form, and ask for our 2027 closing and reopening dates at the same time.

Sources: the Hong Kong government’s 2027 general holiday list and the Hong Kong Observatory’s 2027 calendar table for the Chinese New Year dates; the State Council General Office’s holiday notices for 2025 and 2026 (published 12 November 2024 and 4 November 2025); SEKO Logistics’ Lunar New Year 2027 planning guide (August 2026) for the slowdown, shutdown, reopening, recovery, workforce and freight timings; our lead times as published on this site, as of 20 October 2026. The latest artwork dates are our own arithmetic from the longest lead time in each range. The timeline chart is an illustration made from these figures.