Chinese New Year is an annual 15-day celebration, celebrated across China and in Chinese communities around the world.
The date the celebration falls on changes annually inline with the phases of the moon, but it occurs sometime between January 21st and February 20th.
The Chinese zodiac, is the traditional classification scheme based on the Chinese calendar, and works via a repeating cycle of 12 years, where each year is assigned an animal. 2026, is the year of the horse.
Since the late 1990’s, the Chinese population have been given a 7-day leave of absence to celebrate. This national holiday, while a wonderful occasion for the Chinese people, has major knock on effects for those in the logistics industry all over the world, due to the infamous Chinese New Year shipping delays it has become synonymous with.
How Does Chinese New Year Create Shipping Delays?
- Factory Shutdowns
The 7-day national holiday leads to factory shutdowns, halting manufacturing across China. These shutdowns can start as early as January 22nd and end as late as mid February. However, disturbances before and after this are common due to surges in orders that occur before the holidays hit, and to account for the time it takes for normal productive levels to return to normal. This can lead to significant delays in. - Shipping Delays
Chinese new year creates shipping delays both before and after the holiday itself, due to the pre-holiday push, and the requirement to process orders that weren’t shipped before the CNY shut downs. Container scarcity in China can also be a problem around the holiday. Furthermore, all this has a knock on effect regarding road transport all over the world, where carriers also experience delays and high service demand as a result. However, at present (Feb 2026), we are seeing higher availability and container costs at an all time low. - Slower Operations Across China’s Exporting Industry
Due to the extended leave of absence around this holiday, the country’s manufacturing, shipping, warehousing, and transportation services largely come to a halt, with factories, ports, and hubs operating with a far reduced staff. This creates slower operations throughout and either side of CNY. - Further Ripple Effects
For businesses manufacturing across other Asian countries, but using parts manufactured or imported from China, Chinese New Year shipping delays, freight costs and factory shutdowns could still impact your operations around CNY.
How Should You Prepare to Navigate CNY Disruptions?
At Delamode, we recommend businesses like yours navigate the disruption around Chinese New Year by:
- Building additional lead time into ordering and replenishment around the holiday’s disruption window, to avoid Chinese New Year shipping delays.
- Maintaining open and regular communication with your suppliers, carriers and your internal teams to increase visibility of shipments and their status.
- Reviewing your safety stock levels to consider short-term buffer stock at times when demand is especially high, like Chinese New Year.
- Sharing accurate forecasts ahead of the disruption window to support capacity planning across all import services.
- Completing shipping documentation and customs data accurately and on time, to avoid clearance delays.
- Considering alternative routing or mode options where service reliability is critical.
- Internally aligning contingency plans so your operations teams are prepared to respond quickly to delays and disturbances.
How Delamode Support Our Clients to Navigate Chinese New Year Shipping Delays
Delamode supports clients importing products from China to navigate the logistical disturbances around Chinese New Year by:
- Providing you with forward planning timelines which highlight factor shutdown periods, booking cut-off points, and expected recovery timeframes.
- Working with you to pull orders forward where possible to get ahead of Chinese New Year shipping delays.
- Offering flexible routing and transport mode solutions, spanning road, sea, air, and helping you choose alternative ports to navigate disruption windows like CNY.
- Monitoring carrier schedules and availability to secure bookings ahead of peak CNY demand.
- Maintaining proactive communication with partners and suppliers to give you real-time updates.
- Supporting you with inventory planning and UK inbound scheduling to smooth post-CNY volume surges.
- Providing you with market insight and risk visibility, to enable you to make informed supply chain decisions ahead of the shut downs, to avoid Chinese New Year shipping delays.
Speak to Delamode
If you feel you need a more dedicated 3PL partner, committed to helping you to navigate the complex world of logistics, and to help your business easily navigate both annual and sudden logistical disturbances, contact Delamode today.
