Chinese New Year and Public Holidays 2025 in China

1. The day of the Chinese Lunar New Year in 2025

Year	Chinese New Year Day	Chinese Zodiac Sign
2022	February 1, 2022	Water Tiger
2023	January 22, 2023	Water Rabbit
2024	February 10, 2024	Wood Dragon
2025	January 29, 2025	Wood Snake
2026	February 17, 2026	Fire Horse
2027	February 06, 2027	Fire Goat

2. The official annual public holidays schedule for 2025 in China

On 12 November, the Chinese State Council announced and published the official for the annual holiday calendar. The calendar shown in the table below is the official calendar for the year 2025.

 

Traditional Holidays	Official Holidays in 2025	Catch-up working days
New Year's Day	Wednesday 01 January	-
Chinese New Year (农历新年)	Tue 28 January to Tues 04 February	Sun 26 January + Sat 8 February
Qingming Festival (清明节)	Friday 04 to Saturday 06 April	-
Labor Day (劳动节)	Saturday 31 May to Monday 02 June	Sunday 27 April
Dragon Boat Festival (端午节)	June 10 (Monday)	May 31 (Sat） to June 2 （Mon）
Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋节) + National Day (国庆节)	Wed 01 to Wed 08 October	Sun 28 september + sat 11 october

In addition, here are the links to the leave and holiday 2025 calendars valid in Hong-Kong and Taiwan.e.

 

3. Impact of the Chinese New Year on your business relationship with China

 

a. A unique annual period affecting production

The official published dates of the next Chinese New Year holidays have been confirmed to be from Saturday 10th February to Saturday 17th February 2024. That is 1 week. In its official announcement, the Chinese government urges employers and employees to find a way to effectively start the holidays as early as Friday 9 February. For example, by using a paid day off. As is the case every year in China, this does not necessarily mean that all employees will go on holiday and return to work on these dates.

Why is that? As every year, this is the only time when factories and production sites can be closed for a few weeks. For factory workers, it is often the only and traditional opportunity to be with their families, who often live far from their workplace.

Expect to see many manufacturing facilities

 

b. The Lunar New Year and its impact on the largest population migration

The Chinese New Year, also known as the Spring Festival, results in hundreds of millions of people travelling. Official estimates put the number of trips at over 800 million. Despite a well-developed national transport network, traffic jams are inevitable. The return of workers is gradual. As this is the time when workers receive their annual bonus before going on holiday, it is common for some not to return. They change employers, jobs or regions. This means that this context must be taken into account if you are planning to recruit managers, executives or employees in China.

 

c. The impact on production deadlines, container availability and freight rates

Every year, the slowdown, shutdown and resumption of your supplier's activity has a major impact on their production capacity and shipping forecasts. The impact of this period means production and delivery delays of 3 to 4 weeks or more. Occasionally, the situation is aggravated by a sharp increase in the cost of raw materials or a shortage of shipping containers (Covid period, Ukraine-Russia conflict, Suez Canal crisis).

 

d. China travel restrictions being eased and a new visa exemption policy

During the Chinese New Year holidays from 2020 to 2023, the health context led to a gradual departure and return of the workforce. The same situation occurred for the Chinese New Year in 2024. The main difference was that many employees had not returned to their families in previous years. Many workers and managers in large cities had not returned to their home provinces to join their families. They wanted to avoid the increased health risks associated with travel. They preferred to avoid quarantine periods, which were quite unpredictable depending on the region.

Good news! The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has announced that from 1 December 2023 to 30 November 2024, citizens of 6 countries will be able to stay in China for 15 days without a visa. These countries are France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Malaysia. This visa exemption applies to travel for tourism, business, family visits or transit purposes. On 7 March, the measure was extended to 6 more countries: Ireland, Switzerland, Belgium, Hungary, Austria and Luxembourg. On 7 May, during his state visit to France, President Xi Jinping announced the extension of this exemption policy until 31 December 2025.

Since the beginning of last year, the visa policy for China has been normalised. In order to maintain the health of companies, the authorities now allow a domestic or foreign company registered in China to temporarily reduce its activities and expenses as part of a legal dormancy procedure.

• Faced with numerous supply difficulties affecting prices and delivery times, many Western importers are reorganising their purchasing policies and sourcing of Chinese suppliers or manufacturers.
  
  
• Some overseas exporters, sometimes benefiting from a government support plan, took the opportunity to explore new international markets. This included seeking sales opportunities with Chinese distributors and importers.
  
  
• To better manage their inventories, local importers saw the opportunity to set up a logistics consolidation centre near a port or in one of China's 21 free trade zones. These facilities were either dedicated or shared.
  
  
• Some companies with the capacity to anticipate long-term or timely opportunities decided to set up their own manufacturing site or assembly plant in China. They intend to produce and sell locally.

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