Why festival hours matter
Before Diwali, Holi or Eid, many people search for a shop, salon or clinic on their phone and look at the timing. If your profile shows normal hours and you are shut, or you stay open late and it says closed, you lose a customer and sometimes get an angry review. Google gives you a simple tool for this: special hours.
What special hours do
Google says special hours cover temporary changes such as holidays, special events or other unusual circumstances, and your regular hours stay the same. For the day you set, special hours replace your regular hours. Google also suggests confirming your hours for official holidays even when they match your normal timing, so customers can see that the information is current.
How to set them
Sign in to the Google account linked to your profile. Open Edit profile, then Hours, then Special hours. Pick the date, then either tick Closed or enter the opening and closing time. If you open in two parts, such as morning and evening, use More to add another set of hours for the same day. Save. Google reviews changes before they go live, so do not leave this for the last evening.
Closed for a few days, or longer
Special hours work if the business stays closed for up to 6 days in a row. For 7 or more days in a row, Google says to use the Temporarily closed status instead. So a short Diwali break fits special hours, while a long renovation does not.
Three mistakes to avoid
- Special hours show only while your profile is set to "Open with main hours". If it is set to something else, customers will not see them.
- One set of special hours cannot be longer than 24 hours. If you stay open past midnight, split it into two entries.
- A special day replaces your regular hours for that day. If you want part of the next day's normal hours to show, enter them again.
If you offer delivery or other services at different times, Google says to use More hours for those.
Our advice
Make it a yearly habit. When the festival calendar for the year is known, add the special hours for your closures and late nights in one sitting, then check the profile on your phone. Tell your staff the same timing, and put the same notice on your door and your WhatsApp status so every place says the same thing.
Open your profile today and add special hours for your next festival closure.
How this post was made: an AI drafted it from the official pages listed under Sources, every figure was checked against those pages, and the Reveaxa team approved it before it was published. Our own advice is marked as such. If a source changes, we update the post and its date.
Reveaxa guide reference: RVX-B-special-hours-google-business-profile-festivals