Every year, a predictable email arrives in the first week of January. It asks whether we can still make a spring programme, and it is always surprised by the answer. The factory is not the obstacle in that email. The calendar is, and it was decided in November.
Chinese New Year 2027 falls on 6 February. That single date removes roughly six weeks of production from the front of next year, and it does so eleven days earlier than it did in 2026.
Why the date moved
The holiday tracks the lunar calendar, not the Gregorian one, so it drifts. The lunar year that ended in February 2026 carried a leap month, which pushed that holiday to 17 February. The year ending in February 2027 carries no such cushion, so it lands on 6 February.
Eleven days sounds trivial against a lead time measured in months. It is not, because the constraint it moves is not the holiday. It is the last vessel that sails before the factory stops, and every order competing for that vessel is now competing eleven days earlier than it was last year.
What actually closes
The public holiday is seven to eight days. Treating that as the disruption is the mistake that ruins spring programmes.
| What stops | For how long | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Migrant workforce | Leaves 1-2 weeks before | The travel window, and tickets bought months ahead |
| Sewing and stuffing lines | ~3 weeks | Wind-down, closure, then a partial restart |
| Fabric mills and dyehouses | ~4 weeks | They close earlier than the garment floor |
| Printing, packaging, cartons | ~4 weeks | Upstream of the factory, not inside it |
| Ocean capacity | Peak surcharge, rolled cargo | Everyone ships in the same fortnight |
The gap that matters is not 6-13 February. It is the stretch from roughly mid-January to the beginning of March, during which output is either zero or a fraction of normal. A factory that says it reopens on 15 February is telling the truth and still running at perhaps half capacity in the first week, because the people who run the lines have to get back first.
Output across the holiday, not to scale
100% |#### ####
|#### ####
50% |#### .... ####
|#### .... ####
0% |####----....----####
+-----------------------
Dec Jan Feb Mar
|<- wind-down ->| |<- ramp ->|
closure
Two calendars, and only two
There are exactly two ways to place a spring order, and they produce very different arrival dates. Both below use our standard timings: sampling in 5-7 business days, mass production in 30-45 calendar days after sample approval, FOB Shanghai or Ningbo. The retail-side version of this arithmetic - working back from a shelf-set date rather than from a factory closure - is in why the Halloween deadline is in April.
Calendar A - sail before the gap
The last realistic ocean departure before the wind-down is around 15 January 2027. Booking cut-off for that vessel is roughly a week earlier.
| Date | Milestone | Assumption |
|---|---|---|
| 1-7 Nov 2026 | Brief, artwork, specification | The week this is decided |
| 13 Nov 2026 | First physical sample | 5-7 business days from confirmed artwork |
| 20 Nov 2026 | Sample approved | One revision round included |
| 24 Nov 2026 | Fabric in house | 10 days, stock fabric only |
| 24 Nov 2026 | Production starts | 45 calendar days for a 20,000 piece run |
| 8 Jan 2027 | Goods leave the factory | 5-7 days to port and cut-off |
| 15 Jan 2027 | Ocean departure | Last pre-holiday sailing |
| 31 Jan 2027 | Arrival, US West Coast | ~16 days transit |
| 10 Feb 2027 | In the destination DC | ~10 days port, drayage, allocation |
Read the first row and the last row together. The work that decides a February arrival happens in the first week of November. Nothing in that table can be compressed later, because each row is bounded by something the factory does not control: a dye lot, a vessel, a customs queue.
Calendar B - produce after the gap
Order in January and this is the schedule you are actually buying.
| Date | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 6 Feb 2027 | Holiday |
| ~15 Feb 2027 | Factory reopens |
| ~1 Mar 2027 | Full capacity restored |
| 15 Apr 2027 | Production complete, 45 days from 1 March |
| ~22 Apr 2027 | Ocean departure |
| ~8 May 2027 | Arrival, US West Coast |
| ~20 May 2027 | In the destination DC |
There is nothing wrong with Calendar B. It is the correct choice for autumn and winter programmes. It is simply not a spring programme, and buyers who select it in January believing they have chosen “slightly later” have in fact chosen “the following quarter”.
Capacity is the real constraint
The tables above assume capacity exists when the date arrives. In January it does not, and that is the part buyers underestimate.
A factory’s January is booked in October and November, because the buyers who understand this calendar placed their orders then. By December, the answer to “can you start on 24 November” is not a scheduling discussion. It is a no. The drawing can be perfect and the price can be agreed; there is no line to put it on.
This is also why the eleven-day shift matters more than it looks. The capacity that was tight in mid-January 2026 is now being asked for in early January 2027, in the same fortnight as everyone else’s.
What missing the window costs
If the 15 January sailing is missed and the goods still have to be on a shelf in February, air freight is the only route. On a 20,000 piece order for a 25 cm character at about 240 g:
| Line | Ocean | Air |
|---|---|---|
| Units | 20,000 | 20,000 |
| Chargeable weight | - | 4,800 kg |
| Rate (illustrative) | ~$0.085 per unit | ~$7.50 per kg |
| Freight cost | ~$1,700 | ~$36,000 |
| Difference per unit | - | +$1.72 |
| As a share of a $3.13 FOB price | - | 55% |
The air-freight penalty is more than half the FOB price of the product, and it buys speed rather than certainty. An air shipment leaving in early February still has to clear and be distributed, and the shelf set does not wait for it. How packing density changes that per-unit figure is set out in plush freight and CBM.
Where this calendar breaks
Three things break the schedule above, and each is worth naming before it happens.
Fabric that is dyed to order. Stock fabric is assumed in Calendar A. A specific seasonal colour, a custom print or a pile height that has to be knitted adds two to three weeks at the mill, and the mill closes earlier than the sewing floor. If the colourway is not a stock line, Calendar A is already gone unless the brief moved in October.
A second sampling round. One revision is built in. A second costs about ten days - the sampling cycle itself explains where that time goes - and it comes straight out of production, because the sail date does not move. A complete specification up front - fabric, GSM, fill grams, eye fixing, artwork with a colour reference - is the cheapest way to buy that time back.
Assuming the closure is uniform. It is not. Factories in different provinces keep different calendars, some run a skeleton crew through the holiday, and the statutory holiday itself is announced by the State Council only in the preceding autumn. Treat any published closure date as an estimate until the factory confirms its own in writing.
Five questions to send this week
These are the questions that separate a supplier who has a plan from one who has a hope. Ask them in writing, and keep the reply.
- What are your exact closure and restart dates for the 2027 holiday?
- What is the last booking date for ocean freight before the closure?
- How many production lines run in your first week back, and at what capacity?
- Is the fabric and colourway I need in stock, or dyed and knitted to order?
- What is the earliest production slot you can hold for me, and does holding it carry a cost?
The answers also tell you something about the supplier that a price list cannot. A factory that answers question 3 with a number has thought about the ramp. One that answers “we reopen on the 15th” has not.
The short version
Chinese New Year 2027 is on 6 February. The production gap around it is about six weeks, and it starts in mid-January, not on the holiday itself. To sail before it, samples need approving around 20 November and the brief needs to be in this week. To produce after it, plan on goods reaching a destination DC in the second half of May.
Both are workable. Only one of them is still open in January.
If you are placing a spring programme, the specification is what we need first - artwork, size, fabric, fill weight and target quantity. Send it through the contact form and we will come back with a sampling date and a production slot rather than a lead time in the abstract. Minimum order is 100 pieces per design and colourway, and a small run is often easier to slot into a gap in the calendar than a container load is.
If a new pattern is not essential, starting from a shell in the stock catalogue removes the sampling round from Calendar A entirely, which is often the difference between making the January sailing and not.