China Public Holidays 2027: Official Days Off, Golden Weeks

Dotted underline: only secondhand sources report it so far. Tap or hover it for why, and check before you go.

2027 at a glance

The days off and working days are from the State Council General Office notice of November 5, 2026 (国办发明电〔2026〕10号). The festival dates in brackets are from the Hong Kong Observatory’s 2027 calendar table. We checked every weekday against the calendar.

Why some weekends are working days

China’s holiday rules give everyone 13 days off a year. Since January 1, 2025, they are:

• Spring Festival: 4 days, New Year’s Eve and the first three days of the lunar year;
• National Day: 3 days, October 1 to 3;
• Labour Day: 2 days, May 1 and 2;
• New Year’s Day, Qingming, Dragon Boat and Mid-Autumn: 1 day each.

The State Council then joins these days to weekends to make longer breaks. To do that, it swaps some weekdays with weekend days: the weekday becomes a day off, and the weekend day becomes a working day. The rules say that, apart from special cases, people should generally not work more than 6 days in a row before or after a holiday.

Each year, a notice sets the exact days. The 2025 schedule came out on November 12, 2024, the 2026 schedule on November 4, 2025, and the 2027 schedule on November 5, 2026.

The Golden Weeks and train travel

The long breaks in 2027 are Spring Festival (9 days), National Day (7 days) and Labour Day (5 days). These are the weeks when people in China travel home or go on holiday.

iPhoto: Tim Wu · CC BY-SA 4.0 Details

Trains are where you feel it most. In the 2026 National Day holiday, the railway operator in Guangzhou carried 20.721 million passengers from October 1 to 7, a record. On October 1, 2026 alone, Guangzhou South Station handled 1.049 million arriving and departing passengers.

What this means for your trip:

1. Book trains early. Tickets generally go on sale 15 days ahead, according to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism’s Travel China site. Our China train tickets guide shows how to buy them with a passport.
2. Avoid the first day of a break if you can. In 2026, October 1 was the busiest day of the break on the railway, and return trips filled the last days.

iPhoto: LN9267 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Details

What is open during the holidays

• Trains run. They are at their busiest, as the 2026 figures above show.
• Some sights stay open. The Nanyue King Museum says it is open on national holidays. Our Guangzhou museums guide lists opening days for the main museums.
• Offices follow the schedule. Government offices close on the days off and open on the make-up working days.

For any one restaurant, shop or sight, check its own notice before you go.

Hong Kong and Macao have their own holidays

Hong Kong and Macao publish separate holiday lists, and the days off are not the same as on the mainland.

Sources: GovHK’s 2027 general holidays and the Macao government portal’s 2027 public holidays. Both also have holidays the mainland doesn’t, such as Good Friday, the Buddha’s Birthday, Chung Yeung on October 8 and Christmas. See Guangzhou to Hong Kong and Guangzhou to Macao for the routes.

Guangzhou in the 2027 holidays

• Chinese New Year flower fairs. The 2027 dates are not published yet. We add them to the events calendar when the city announces them.
• Taxi surcharge at Spring Festival. Guangzhou taxis charge ¥10 extra per trip during the Spring Festival days off set by the State Council notice, so from February 5 to 13, 2027, according to the city’s 2024 fare notice. See Guangzhou taxis.
• Canton Fair and Labour Day. The 141st Canton Fair has no official dates yet. Listing sites show Phase 3 on May 1 to 5, 2027, which would be the whole Labour Day break, as Phase 3 was in 2026. See Canton Fair 2027 dates.
• Weather and crowds by month. Our best time to visit Guangzhou guide puts the holidays next to the climate.