> How and when to set special hours on Google for Thanksgiving, December, and New Year, when to mark a business temporarily closed, and what searchers see. > > Source: https://christopherabraham.com/guides/holiday-hours/ · Updated 2026-10-07 · By Christopher Abraham # Holiday hours on Google: set them before you need them By [Christopher Abraham](https://christopherabraham.com/about/) · Published October 7, 2026 Every November, someone drives to a shop that Google said was open and finds the lights off. That customer doesn't blame Google. Special hours on your Business Profile take a few minutes to set, and the best time to set them is weeks before the holidays, not the night before. ## Special hours, regular hours, and closures Your regular hours describe a normal week. Special hours override them for specific dates, such as Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, or a one day event, without touching the normal schedule. Google's help pages draw the line at about a week: special hours cover a business that adjusts its hours or closes for up to six days in a row. Closed for seven days or more, or for an unknown period, and the right tool is marking the business temporarily closed instead. ## Confirm the holidays you're open, too Google suggests confirming your hours for official holidays even when they're the same as usual. It's easy to skip, and it matters: a confirmed holiday tells searchers you thought about that day, and anyone deciding between you and a competitor with the same hours will pick the one that looks certain. ## A calendar for the season - **Early November:** decide your hours for Thanksgiving Day and the day after, and set them. - **Mid November:** set Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's Eve, and New Year's Day while you're thinking about it. - **Any extended or late night shopping hours:** set those as special hours on each date, so your regular schedule stays clean for January. - **The week before each holiday:** look at your listing in Google Search and Maps the way a customer would, and confirm it shows what you intended. ## More than one location Each location has its own profile, so each needs its own special hours, even when the whole company closes on the same day. If you manage many locations, set them as a batch from the dashboard and then spot check a few in Maps. A location that was missed is the one a customer will find. ## Departments and service hours If part of your business keeps different hours, like a pharmacy counter, takeout, or delivery, Google offers additional hour types for those. Use them for the parts that differ, rather than squeezing exceptions into the main hours. ## Keep the website in step Your website should say the same thing as the profile. A short holiday hours note on the contact page, removed after New Year, avoids the mixed message of one schedule on Google and another on your own site. If your hours appear in structured data, update or remove the special dates there as well. ## Snow days and other surprises Winter brings closures nobody can schedule: a storm, a burst pipe, a sick staff. The same tool works. Set special hours for that single date, or mark the day closed, as soon as you know, even if it's early that morning. A listing that says open while the door is locked costs more trust than a short notice ever will. If the closure stretches past six days, switch to temporarily closed and switch back the moment you reopen, because a business left marked closed by mistake quietly loses calls for weeks. ## If you're reading this in December It isn't too late. Set the dates that are still ahead, check the listing in Maps, and add the note to your website. Then put a reminder in next year's calendar for the first week of November, which is the whole trick: decide early, set it once, and stop thinking about it. ## Don't forget to come back Special hours expire on their own after the date passes, which is the main reason to use them instead of editing your regular hours. If you did change your regular hours for the season, put a reminder in your calendar for January to change them back. ## What customers see On the day, Google shows your special hours in place of the regular ones. Searchers who check ahead see the right times, and the ones who call get a business that's actually open. It's the smallest piece of local SEO there is, and one of the few with an immediate, visible payoff. Running several locations, or not sure your listing shows what you think it does? See [local SEO and Google Business Profile](https://christopherabraham.com/services/local-seo/), or [send me the listing](https://christopherabraham.com/contact/) and I'll take a look. ## Sources - [Google Business Profile Help: How to set special hours](https://support.google.com/business/answer/6303076) - [Google Business Profile Help: Edit your Business Profile](https://support.google.com/business/answer/3039617) **[Christopher Abraham](https://christopherabraham.com/about/)** is an independent SEO consultant in Arlington, Virginia, Top Rated on Upwork with 100% Job Success, who writes from his own client work and checks every claim against primary sources. He has built websites since 1994 and practiced SEO since 1998. [How these pages are written](https://christopherabraham.com/about/editorial-policy/) · [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisabraham) · [Upwork](https://www.upwork.com/freelancers/chrisjabraham)