With festivals around the corner, check the hours on your Google Business Profile. If you are closing, closing early, opening late into the night or adding extra days, Google needs to know before your customers do. Use special hours, not your regular hours: they apply only to the dates you pick and then expire on their own.
Festive hours are one of the few things on a profile that cost you money the same day they are wrong. Someone checks Google, sees Open, drives over and finds the shutter down. Or you stay open late for the festive rush, Google still shows your normal closing time, and the evening shoppers go to a competitor. Either way, the listing made the decision for them.
This guide covers the steps for a single location, the faster ways to do it for many locations, closing vs staying open longer, and the mistakes that cause most wrong festive listings.
Managing more than one location?
In BizLoc8, you select all your locations, pick the dates from a built-in holiday list, set the hours once, and they update on every Google profile together. See how it works below.
Special hours vs regular hours
Your profile has two kinds of hours, and holidays belong in only one of them.
| Type | What it does | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| Regular hours | Your normal weekly schedule. Repeats every week until you change it. | A permanent change, such as opening on Sundays from now on. |
| Special hours | Overrides your regular hours for specific dates only. Up to 6 days in a row. | Festival closures, extended festive hours, extra open days, events, a short closure. |
| Temporarily closed | Marks the business closed until you reopen it. | Closed for 7 or more days in a row, or for an unknown period. |
The most common mistake is editing regular hours for a festive week and forgetting to change them back. Special hours avoid that, because they stop applying after the date passes.
How to set festive hours for one location
- Open your Business Profile. Search for your business name on Google while signed in to the account that manages it, or open it in Google Maps.
- Select Edit profile, then Hours.
- Next to Special hours, select Edit. Google often suggests upcoming holidays here. You can confirm a suggested date or add your own.
- Pick the date.
- Set the hours. To close for the day, leave it marked Closed. To open earlier, close later or open on a day you are normally closed, clear Closed and enter the opening and closing times.
- Select Save.
Repeat for each day that changes. You can add the whole season in one sitting, so there is no need to come back before each date.
Open as normal on a holiday? Confirm it anyway.
Google recommends confirming your hours for official holidays even when they match your regular hours. Customers expect many businesses to close on holidays, so a confirmed "open" is useful information on its own.
How to set festive hours for many locations
Editing profiles one by one stops being practical somewhere around five locations, and it is where mistakes creep in: one store missed, a typo in a closing time, a location in a different time zone given the wrong hours.
Option 1: Set them once in BizLoc8
BizLoc8 is built for exactly this job: one change, every location.
- Select your locations. All of them, one region, or just the stores whose hours change.
- Open Opening hours and go to the Special Hours tab.
- Pick dates from the built-in holiday list with "+ Add to Special Hours", or add your own dates for sales, events and extra trading days.
- Set each date to Closed, or enter the hours you will be open, including later closing times and days you normally close.
- Select Update Special Hours. The change goes to every selected Google profile, and it is recorded in your content update log so you can see what was pushed, and when.
Running different hours by region? Select one region at a time and repeat. For the full workflow, see our guide to bulk-updating Google Business Profiles.
Option 2: Google's bulk spreadsheet
If your locations sit in a business group in Google's Business Profile Manager, you can download your locations as a spreadsheet, fill in the Special hours column and upload it. Google's format is the date, a colon, then the hours, with commas between dates:
YYYY-MM-DD: HH:MM-HH:MM, YYYY-MM-DD: x
An x means closed all day. Times use the 24-hour clock. Check the upload preview carefully before you confirm, because a formatting error on one row can apply the wrong hours to that location.
Whichever way you do it
- List the exceptions first. Mall locations often follow the mall's holiday hours. Airport, hospital and highway locations may stay open. Franchise locations may set their own.
- Check time zones and countries. Special hours are local to each location, and so are festivals. A brand with stores in several countries needs a different plan for each, and a head-office spreadsheet in one time zone is the usual source of stores opening "an hour early".
- Spot-check after publishing. Open a handful of profiles on Google Maps a day later and make sure the hours show as you set them.
Closing, or staying open longer?
Most guides only talk about closing for the holidays. For many shops, restaurants and showrooms, the festive season means the opposite: longer days and extra trading days. Both need special hours.
| Your plan | What to set |
|---|---|
| Closed for the day | Special hours for that date, marked Closed. |
| Closing early or opening late | Special hours with the new opening and closing times. |
| Staying open later for the festive rush | Special hours with the later closing time, for each extended day. Otherwise Google keeps showing your normal closing time, and evening shoppers assume you are shut. |
| Opening on a day you are normally closed | Special hours for that date with your opening hours. This is the one most often forgotten. |
| Open as normal on a public holiday | Confirm your regular hours as special hours, as Google recommends. |
| Closed for 7 days or more | Special hours only cover up to 6 days in a row. Mark the business Temporarily closed instead, and reopen it when you are back. |
Set the whole season in one go. Customers start checking hours days before a festival, not on the morning of it.
Mistakes that cost you festive customers
Editing regular hours instead of special hours
It works for the holiday and then quietly stays wrong. Weeks later the profile still shows the shortened hours.
Extending your hours but not telling Google
Late-night shopping and extra trading days only bring in customers who know about them. If you stay open until 10pm but Google says 8pm, the evening crowd never arrives.
Using special hours for a long closure
Special hours cover up to 6 days in a row. For a closure of 7 days or more, such as a renovation or an extended winter break, Google says to mark the business Temporarily closed.
Updating Google but not your other listings
Your website, Apple Maps, Bing and directories all show hours too. If Google says closed and your website says open, customers do not know which to trust, and Google's own AI features read your website as well. Update the hours everywhere they appear.
Not checking what changed after the holidays
Anyone can suggest an edit to a profile, and some edits go live without the owner approving them. The festive season is a busy time for suggested hour changes. Review the updates Google shows on your profile after the festive season. BizLoc8's profile protection does this for you: when Google edits a protected listing on its own, BizLoc8 reverts it and logs the change.
Forgetting the hours that are not "opening hours"
If your profile lists extra hours, such as delivery, pickup or drive-through, check whether they change for the festive season too.
How BizLoc8 helps
Festive hours are a small change repeated across every location, which is exactly where manual work breaks down. BizLoc8 turns it into one job.
| What you need | What BizLoc8 does |
|---|---|
| Festive hours on every location | Select any number of locations and set special hours once: closed days, early closing, late opening and extra trading days. |
| Not missing a holiday | A built-in holiday list in the Special Hours tab, so you add dates with one click instead of looking them up. |
| Hours that stay the way you set them | Profile protection reverts edits Google makes to a protected listing on its own, with a log of every revert. |
| Proof of what changed | A content update log with the history of every update pushed to your listings. |
| Spotting gaps first | A map of your locations that flags where hours and other details need fixing, and a free Google Business Profile audit. |
Hours are only one part of it. The same dashboard manages Google Business Profiles, reviews and listings across all your locations.
Update festive hours on every location in one go
See how BizLoc8 sets special hours across all your Google profiles at once, and keeps them the way you set them.
Frequently asked questions
How do I add holiday hours to my Google Business Profile?
Open your Business Profile, select Edit profile, then Hours. Next to Special hours, select Edit, pick the holiday date, then either mark it Closed or enter the hours you will be open, and select Save. Special hours override your regular hours for that date only.
Should I set special hours if I am open as normal on a holiday?
Yes. Google recommends confirming your hours for official holidays even when they are the same as your regular hours, because it makes it clear to customers that your hours are accurate.
How many days can special hours cover?
Up to 6 days in a row. If the business will be closed for 7 or more days in a row, or for an unknown period, Google says to mark it as Temporarily closed instead.
How do I set holiday hours for multiple locations at once?
In Business Profile Manager you can upload a spreadsheet with a Special hours column, using the format YYYY-MM-DD: HH:MM-HH:MM, with commas between dates and x for a closed day. A platform such as BizLoc8 lets you select every location, add the dates from a built-in holiday list and push the same special hours to all of them in one action.
Should I change my regular hours for the holidays?
No. Changing regular hours applies to every week until you change them back, which is easy to forget. Use special hours, which apply only to the dates you choose and then expire on their own.
Sources
- How to set Special hours, Google Business Profile Help for the steps, the 6-day limit, the Temporarily closed guidance, confirming holiday hours, and the spreadsheet format.
- Create a bulk upload spreadsheet for Business Profiles, Google Business Profile Help for bulk uploads in Business Profile Manager.
- Understand Google updates on your Business Profile, Google Business Profile Help for reviewing edits made to your profile.
Steps reflect Google's help pages as of October 2026. Google changes the Business Profile editor from time to time, so menu names may differ slightly on your screen.
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