🇨🇳 Marketing calendar for China

China at a glance

1,407,181,209 people · ♂ 51% / ♀ 49% · median age 40.8 · urban 64.6%

How touchy is the topic here

Basis: curated for this market. Local legal review still wins.

What is coming in China

Everything ahead, in order — what to avoid, what to handle carefully and what is worth showing up for — the next twelve months, from 25 July 2026. The app carries the same data through 2030.

August 2026

• Caution ✝ Chinese Valentine's Day
  19 August 2026

  Solemn religious observance — keep tone quiet.

• Day off Spirit Festival
  27 August 2026

  Public holiday — offices closed, B2B reach drops, consumer traffic shifts to mobile.

September 2026

• Opportunity Teachers' Day
  10 September 2026

  Gifting occasion — offer an opt-out from the email if the topic can hurt.

• Caution Mukden Incident anniversary (九一八)
  18 September 2026

  Air-raid sirens sound in north-eastern cities. Another date where Japanese-brand adjacency is sensitive.

  • No festive creative in CN that day
• Opportunity Mid-Autumn Festival 中秋节
  25 September 2026

  Festive commercial peak — localise the creative, do not reuse a global asset.

• Opportunity Mid-Autumn Festival Holiday
  26 September 2026

  Festive commercial peak — localise the creative, do not reuse a global asset.

• Opportunity Mid-Autumn Festival Holiday
  27 September 2026

  Festive commercial peak — localise the creative, do not reuse a global asset.

October 2026

• Opportunity Golden Week (National Day holiday)
  1 October 2026 – 7 October 2026

  Seven days of national holiday: the largest domestic travel and offline-retail window in China, and the warm-up for the 11.11 pre-sale cycle.

  Greeting: “国庆节快乐”

  • Do not schedule production deadlines or B2B follow-ups into the week
  • Travel, dining, duty-free and luxury peak; book platform placements months ahead
  • Factories and B2B counterparts are closed the whole week
• Opportunity National Day 国庆节
  1 October 2026

  National celebration — greetings land well; check local flag-use rules first.

• Opportunity National Day Holiday
  2 October 2026

  Festive commercial peak — localise the creative, do not reuse a global asset.

• Opportunity National Day Holiday
  3 October 2026

  Festive commercial peak — localise the creative, do not reuse a global asset.

• Opportunity National Day Holiday
  4 October 2026

  Festive commercial peak — localise the creative, do not reuse a global asset.

• Opportunity National Day Holiday
  5 October 2026

  Festive commercial peak — localise the creative, do not reuse a global asset.

• Opportunity National Day Golden Week holiday
  6 October 2026

  Festive commercial peak — localise the creative, do not reuse a global asset.

• Opportunity National Day Holiday
  7 October 2026

  Festive commercial peak — localise the creative, do not reuse a global asset.

• Caution World Mental Health Day
  10 October 2026

  Safe to participate only with substance: employee provision, funded partnerships, or accessible resources.

  • No 'take a bath, you deserve it' brand wellness content
  • Do not attach a promo code
• Day off Double Ninth Festival
  18 October 2026

  Public holiday — offices closed, B2B reach drops, consumer traffic shifts to mobile.

November 2026

• Opportunity Singles' Day (11.11)
  11 November 2026

  The largest shopping event on earth, now a month-long campaign with pre-sale deposits starting in late October.

  • Do not treat 11 November as a single day — the money moves earlier
  • Start pre-sale mechanics in mid/late October
  • Livestream commerce is the primary channel, not display

December 2026

• Avoid Nanjing Massacre National Memorial Day
  13 December 2026

  State memorial day with sirens in Nanjing. Anti-Japanese sentiment runs high; Japanese brands and Japanese-coded aesthetics face real risk that week.

  • No kimono, sakura or Japanese-styled creative in CN that week
  • No promotional posting on the day
• Opportunity ✝ Christmas Day
  25 December 2026

  Gifting and clearance peak — publish shipping cut-offs early.

January 2027

• Opportunity New Year's Day
  1 January 2027

  Universal, but the emotional weight differs: in Russia and Ukraine it outranks Christmas; in Japan it is the main family holiday of the year.

  Greeting: “Happy New Year”

  • Avoid resolution-shaming and body-related January creative
  • Ship the 'new year, new plan' offer in the first working week, not on the day itself
• Avoid International Holocaust Remembrance Day
  27 January 2027

  UN-designated day marking the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Institutions, media and most large brands post commemorative content only — or nothing at all.

  • Never attach a product, discount or hashtag campaign to it
  • No stock imagery of camps, no stylised typography

February 2027

• Opportunity Spring Festival Eve
  5 February 2027

  Peak greeting moment — a plain, warm wish from the brand is expected.

• Opportunity Chinese New Year
  6 February 2027 – 12 February 2027

  Spring Festival — the largest annual human migration, a factory shutdown of 1–3 weeks, and a red-envelope gifting peak. 2026 is the Year of the Horse.

  Greeting: “新年快乐 / 恭喜发财”

  • Never use the number 4 in prices or bundles (homophone for death)
  • No black-and-white funerary palettes in festive creative
  • Move production and shipping deadlines weeks earlier
  • Zodiac-themed creative is expected, but check the animal and the colour rules
• Opportunity Spring Festival Holiday
  7 February 2027

  Peak greeting moment — a plain, warm wish from the brand is expected.

• Opportunity Spring Festival Holiday
  8 February 2027

  Peak greeting moment — a plain, warm wish from the brand is expected.

• Opportunity Spring Festival Holiday
  9 February 2027

  Peak greeting moment — a plain, warm wish from the brand is expected.

• Opportunity Spring Festival Holiday
  10 February 2027

  Peak greeting moment — a plain, warm wish from the brand is expected.

• Opportunity Spring Festival Holiday
  11 February 2027

  Peak greeting moment — a plain, warm wish from the brand is expected.

• Day off Lantern Festival
  20 February 2027

  Public holiday — offices closed, B2B reach drops, consumer traffic shifts to mobile.

March 2027

• Caution International Women's Day
  8 March 2027

  A commercial gifting holiday in some markets (RU, IT, parts of CEE) and a political/labour day in others. In the UK the Gender Pay Gap Bot reliably humiliates brands that post platitudes.

  • No pink-washed discount codes on 'women's products'
  • Do not post if your own numbers would embarrass you
• Day off Zhonghe Festival
  9 March 2027

  Public holiday — offices closed, B2B reach drops, consumer traffic shifts to mobile.

• Day off Arbor Day
  12 March 2027

  Public holiday — offices closed, B2B reach drops, consumer traffic shifts to mobile.

April 2027

• Caution April Fools' Day
  1 April 2027

  The classic brand-prank day. Payoff has collapsed while the downside — fake product announcements that get picked up as real news — has not.

  • No fake outages, fake recalls, fake price changes or fake acquisitions
  • Never run pranks in markets where the date is not a tradition (most of MENA, Asia)
• Caution Qingming (Tomb-Sweeping Day)
  5 April 2027

  Families visit graves to honour ancestors. Public holiday; a solemn mood with heavy travel.

  • No celebratory or party creative
  • Avoid white/chrysanthemum funerary symbolism in unrelated campaigns
• Day off Qing Ming Jie
  5 April 2027

  Public holiday — offices closed, B2B reach drops, consumer traffic shifts to mobile.

• Caution Earth Day
  22 April 2027

  Peak greenwashing-scrutiny day. EU markets now have legal exposure: unsubstantiated environmental claims are enforceable under consumer law.

  • No vague 'eco', 'carbon neutral', 'planet positive' claims without methodology
  • Do not run a Earth Day sale on disposable goods

May 2027

• Opportunity Labour Day 劳动节
  1 May 2027

  Long-weekend retail moment in most markets; keep the tone about people, not productivity.

• Day off Youth Day (half-day)
  4 May 2027

  Public holiday — offices closed, B2B reach drops, consumer traffic shifts to mobile.

• Opportunity Mother's Day
  9 May 2027

  The second-largest gifting day of the year in most of these markets — flowers, jewellery, restaurants, delivery. Note that the date is NOT global: the UK, France, Spain, Mexico, Poland, Russia and Argentina all use different days.

  Greeting: “Happy Mother's Day”

  • Do not send one Mother's Day campaign to a global list — you will be a month early or late in half of it
  • Avoid 'every mum wants…' framing; gifting is increasingly for any caregiver
  • Offer an opt-out from Mother's Day emails — the standard of care since 2019, and it lowers unsubscribes
  • Publish delivery cut-offs; flowers and cake logistics sell out days ahead
  • Segment out anyone who opted out last year

June 2027

• Avoid 4 June (Tiananmen) anniversary
  4 June 2027

  Heavily censored inside China. Platform moderation tightens around the date; numeric references (64, 8964, 5.35) are filtered and accounts posting them can be restricted.

  • Never reference the event, the date or the imagery in any China-facing channel
  • Do not use candle imagery or the numbers 6/4 as a design motif that week
• Day off Dragon Boat Festival 端午节
  9 June 2027

  Public holiday — offices closed, B2B reach drops, consumer traffic shifts to mobile.

• Opportunity 618 Mid-Year Shopping Festival
  18 June 2027

  JD.com's anniversary sale, now an industry-wide mid-year peak second only to 11.11.

  • Do not run it without a local platform partner
  • Plan platform-specific mechanics; each marketplace runs its own rules
• Opportunity Father's Day
  20 June 2027

  Third Sunday of June in most markets. Smaller basket than Mother's Day but higher conversion on electronics, tools and experiences.

  Greeting: “Happy Father's Day”

  • Do not run it in Brazil (August), Germany (Ascension Day), Italy or Spain (19 March)
  • Opt-out link, same as Mother's Day
  • Experience gifting outperforms novelty products

What not to touch in China

Numbers

• 4 (death) — avoid in prices, floors, bundles, model names. 8 is the lucky counterpart.
• 64, 8964, 5.35 — Tiananmen references; they trip platform filters and can cost you the account.

Colours

• White and black together are funerary; a green hat means an unfaithful partner.
• Clocks as gifts ('sòng zhōng' = attending a funeral).

Symbols

• Maps that omit or mislabel Taiwan, Hong Kong, Tibet or the South China Sea — this has ended market access for global brands.
• Any Dalai Lama, Xinjiang or Tiananmen reference.

Themes

• Japanese-coded aesthetics around 13 December and 18 September.
• Anything that can be read as looking down on Chinese consumers — the 2018 D&G case is the reference point.

What already went wrong here

• Dolce & Gabbana — Chopsticks, cannoli, and a cancelled show in Shanghai 2018
• Dalian 'Little Kyoto' street — A Japanese-style street closes days after opening 2021

Other markets

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