Google Holiday Hours for Restaurants: Set Special Hours Without Changing Your Regular Hours

Use Special hours. On a Google Business Profile you own or manage, Special hours change what Google shows for specific dates and leave your weekly hours alone. Google describes two uses: dates when you temporarily change your opening hours, and closures of up to six days in a row. The six-day limit is about all-day closures. Google doesn't put a day count on changed opening hours; it describes them as a change for a brief period. Special hours only show while the profile's hours are set to Open with main hours, so they're for a restaurant that's operating.

Five rules cover most restaurant holiday schedules:

• Check your status first. Google says Special hours need the profile's hours set to Open with main hours to show. If you really are Temporarily closed, keep that status and plan holiday dates on paper until you actually reopen. Don't mark the business open just to make Special hours show.
• Split shifts get two sets of hours. Enter lunch, then use Add hours for dinner on the same date.
• Overnight service past noon gets split at midnight. If one stretch starts before midnight and runs past noon the next day, enter it as two sets. Google then ignores your regular hours for that second day, so re-enter any service you still want shown that day.
• Closure length picks the tool. Closed all day for one to six days in a row: Special hours. Eight or more, the off-season, or no reopening date yet: Temporarily closed. At exactly seven days, Google's own pages disagree (see below).
• Enter dates early and check them. Google reviews profile edits. It says edits usually take up to 10 minutes to review, but sometimes up to 30 days.

We built this from Google Business Profile help pages as they read on October 6, 2026. Those pages don't show a publication or update date. We didn't open or edit a real Business Profile, so the buttons on your screen may be worded or placed differently. The restaurant, hours and plans in the examples are made up. The dates are real 2026–2027 calendar dates, and we checked the weekdays.

Which setting to use

For holidays it lists, Google says a warning may appear on your profile telling people your hours might differ. Setting Special hours ahead of time is how Google says to tell them your actual holiday hours. Google's US list includes Thanksgiving (November 26, 2026), Black Friday (November 27), Christmas Eve, Christmas, New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. Each country has its own list.

Before you start: access, the hours setting, and which hours count

1. Edit with your own access. Sign in with the Google Account that is an owner or manager of the profile. Google's role table lists editing hours under both roles, and Google says each person needs their own Google Account so no one has to share a password. Only manage a profile for a business you're authorized to represent.
2. Match the hours setting to what's true. Go to Edit profile > Hours and look at the Business hours setting. Google says Special hours need Open with main hours to show. Google also says More hours don't show until regular hours are set.
   • Operating, and it says Open with main hours: go ahead.
   • Operating, but it says Open with no main hours: set your real weekly hours under Open with main hours first.
   • Marked Temporarily closed, and you really are closed: leave it. Plan your dates on the sheet below and enter them after you actually reopen. Marking the business open just to get Special hours to show would tell guests you're open when you aren't.
   • Marked Temporarily closed, but you've already reopened: use Google's reopening steps (see the closures section), then read back your weekly hours and Special hours.
3. Enter the hours a diner can sit down. Google's guidelines tell restaurants to list the hours when diners can sit down and eat in. If there's no dining room, use takeout hours, then drive-through hours, and use delivery hours only as a last resort. We apply the same rule to each holiday date.

That third point matters on holidays. Say the dining room opens at noon on Thanksgiving, but you hand out pre-ordered meals from 9 to 11 a.m. If you enter 9:00 AM–6:00 PM, guests will think they can sit down at 9. Enter the dining hours, and announce the pickup window on your website and ordering page. Google's More hours steps are set by day of the week, and the pages we read don't describe a version for a single date.

The fictional schedule

Lantern Street Diner is a made-up restaurant. Its weekly hours are entered under Open with main hours:

Its owner approves the holiday plan below. The manager enters it and reads it back.

Enter Special hours, step by step

Google's documented steps for one profile:

1. Go to your Business Profile and select Edit profile > Hours.
2. In the Business hours section, next to Special hours, select Edit.
3. Pick the date. To accept a date Google suggests, select Review. For any other date, select Add a date and enter it. To change a date you already added, select it.
4. If you're open that day, uncheck Closed and enter the opening and closing times. If you're closed, make sure Closed is checked.
5. For a second set of hours on the same date, select More > Add hours and enter it.
6. Select Save.

To remove a date later, Google says to select Delete next to a closed date. For an open date, select More next to the hours, then Remove day. Saved dates appear under Special hours in Edit profile.

Lantern Street's dates

Overnight service: noon is the line that matters

Google's rule is specific. No single set of Special hours can be longer than 24 hours. If a set starts before midnight and runs past noon the next day, you break it in two: one set that ends at midnight on the first date, and one that starts at midnight on the second. Google says that when you do this, your regular hours for the second date are ignored in favor of the Special hours. To keep any of that day's normal hours, add them again as another set.

Lantern Street's New Year's plan: lunch on December 31, then open at 6:00 p.m. straight through until 1:00 p.m. on January 1, then dinner from 5:00 to 10:00 p.m. on January 1.

The overnight stretch is 19 hours (6 hours before midnight plus 13 after), so it's under Google's 24-hour limit. It still has to be split, because it runs past noon on January 1. Once January 1 has Special hours, Google ignores Lantern Street's regular Friday hours for that date. The 5:00–10:00 p.m. set is there so dinner still shows.

Two notes on midnight. “12:00 AM” is the midnight at the start of a date, so “6:00 PM–12:00 AM” on December 31 means until midnight going into January 1. Writing the 24-hour version next to each time on your sheet catches AM/PM mix-ups.

A late night that ends before noon

Now take Saturday, December 19, 2026: Lantern Street stays open from 10:00 a.m. until 2:00 a.m. Sunday for a neighborhood event, then opens Sunday at its normal 10:00 a.m. That doesn't run past noon, so Google's split rule doesn't cover it. The Special hours page doesn't say how to enter this case, or whether Sunday's regular hours are affected. Google's spreadsheet guide for regular weekly hours puts a past-midnight set on the day it starts (6:00 PM–2:00 AM). That's a different feature, so it doesn't tell you how the Special hours editor handles this.

Whichever way you enter it, guests should be able to see three things:

• Open from 10:00 a.m. Saturday, December 19, straight through to 2:00 a.m. Sunday.
• Closed from 2:00 to 10:00 a.m. Sunday, December 20.
• Open 10:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Sunday.

There are two ways to enter it. Both are our proposals. Google doesn't document either one for this case, and we haven't tried them on a live profile.

Option A is simpler to read back, so try it first. If the editor won't take 2:00 AM on December 19, use Option B. A saved entry or an Accepted status isn't proof on its own. If a set is rejected, disappears or gets overwritten, or you can't tell from the guest view whether midnight to 2:00 a.m. shows, the date is unresolved. Stop there. Don't delete the 12:00 AM–2:00 AM set because it looks odd, and don't keep re-entering it. Ask Google through the Business Profile help community or Contact us, and tell guests the late hours on your own website and social accounts in the meantime.

Closures: six days, seven days, and “we don't know yet”

Count the calendar dates in a row that a guest would find you closed all day. Here's a made-up repair closure for Lantern Street in January 2027:

Exactly seven days. The Special hours page says to use Temporarily closed for “7 or more days in a row.” Google's main hours page describes Special hours as closures of “6 days in a row or fewer.” But the page for marking a business closed says to use Special hours if you're closed “7 days or less” and Temporarily closed for “more than 7 days.” We'd follow the Special hours page and use Temporarily closed for a seven-day closure, because that's the page for this feature and it gives a direct instruction for this exact situation. That's our reading. Check Google's current pages before you choose, in case Google has resolved the conflict.

A regular day off next to the closure. Google doesn't say whether a day you'd normally be closed counts toward the six. We'd count it, because a guest finds you closed that day either way. That's our conservative choice, not a Google rule. If that pushes the run to seven or more, treat it as the longer closure.

Unknown stays unknown. Don't guess a reopening date to squeeze a closure into Special hours. If you don't know when you'll reopen, Google's answer is Temporarily closed.

What changes when you mark Temporarily closed

• The profile shows as Temporarily closed on Google Maps and Search. Google notes that for broad searches, temporarily closed businesses can rank after open ones, depending on factors such as the business category and the search.
• Reopening is a separate step: Edit profile > Hours, select Open with main hours, check each open day, set the hours and save. The pages we read don't describe scheduling a reopening in advance, so don't assume it happens on its own. Name the person who will reopen the profile when you actually reopen. If you don't know the date yet, leave it unknown.
• Google's reopening steps include setting each day's hours again. Its pages don't say whether your old weekly hours come back by themselves, so write them down before you close.
• Special hours need Open with main hours to show. So any holiday dates you entered won't show while the profile is marked Temporarily closed. That's our inference from Google's rule. Keep the closed status while it's true. After you actually reopen, the same person reads back the weekly hours and the Special hours list.

After you save: read it back

1. Find each date in the editor. Under Edit profile > Hours, Special hours should list every date you entered, with every set of hours.
2. Check the edit status. Google says an edit can show as Pending, Accepted or Not approved. Google says edits usually take up to 10 minutes to review, but sometimes up to 30 days. That's why we'd enter major holidays about a month ahead where possible. That's our planning habit, not a Google deadline, and it doesn't guarantee the edit will be approved or showing by the holiday. If an edit is Not approved, Google says you might be able to appeal.
3. Look for blue text. Google can change profile information based on reports from other sources. In the editor, blue text marks information Google changed. If a user suggests an edit and you're notified, you have four days to accept or reject it. Google says it may publish the change after that if public information such as your website supports it. That's one more reason your website's holiday hours should match.
4. Look as a guest. Close to each date, look up the restaurant on Google Search and on Maps while signed out of the account that manages it. Read the hours shown for that date. An Accepted status in the editor doesn't prove what a guest sees, and we don't know how far ahead Google displays an upcoming date.
5. Check both dates of any overnight service. For Lantern Street, January 1 should show 12:00 AM–1:00 PM and 5:00–10:00 PM. For December 19–20, use the readback for the option you entered. With Option A, December 20 lists 10:00 AM–9:00 PM. With Option B, it lists 12:00 AM–2:00 AM and 10:00 AM–9:00 PM. Either way, guests should see open until 2:00 a.m., closed until 10:00 a.m., then open until 9:00 p.m. If they don't, the date is unresolved.
6. Update everything else separately. Changing Google's hours doesn't change your website, online ordering, reservations, POS menus or phone message. Each one needs its own update.

Google's main hours page also says that after you update your hours, the profile can show a message confirming the update, and a post about it can appear on the Updates tab on mobile. You can edit that post to add detail, such as the Thanksgiving pickup window. We couldn't confirm whether that post appears for Special hours specifically.

Copy this entry and readback sheet

Write times in your restaurant's local time, the way your clock on the wall reads them. Keep blanks blank until someone has actually checked.

GOOGLE SPECIAL HOURS: ENTRY + READBACK
Rules from Google Business Profile Help,
read Oct 6, 2026. Not tested on a live
profile. "Ours" = our advice, not Google.
Location: ___________________________
Hours decided by: ________ Date: _____
Entered by (owner/manager, own
account): ___________________________

BEFORE ENTERING
Actually operating now?  Y / N
  Y: hours setting is "Open with main
     hours"? (Google: needed for Special
     hours to show)  Y / N
     N: set real weekly hours under
        Open with main hours first
  N, truly closed: keep Temporarily
     closed. Plan dates here; enter
     them after you really reopen. Don't
     mark open just for Special hours.
Weekly hours written down?  Y / N
Hours = dine-in. No dining room: takeout,
  then drive-through, delivery last
  (Google's order).  Y / N
Recurring takeout/delivery windows:
  More hours (set by weekday). One-date
  pickup: website + ordering page.

WHICH TOOL
Changed opening hours on dates
  .............. Special hours
CLOSED ALL DAY, dates in a row: ____
  1-6 ......... Special hours
  7 ........... Google pages conflict.
     Ours: Temporarily closed (Special
     hours page says 7+). Decision +
     why: _________________________
  8+, off-season or reopen date
  UNKNOWN ..... Temporarily closed
  Normal day off next to it: ours =
     count it (Google doesn't say)
IF TEMPORARILY CLOSED
  Reopening is a manual step, not
  automatic. Reopen owner: __________
  Reopen date: ________ or UNKNOWN
  Ours (inferred): Special hours won't
     show while marked closed.
  After real reopening, read back:
     weekly hours Y/N  Special hours Y/N

EACH DATE
Date: ____-__-__   Weekday: ___
Closed all day? Y / N
Set 1: __:__ to __:__  (24h __:__-__:__)
Set 2: __:__ to __:__  (24h __:__-__:__)
Longest set: ___ h (Google: max 24)
Runs past midnight? Y / N
Starts before midnight AND ends past
12:00 NOON next day? Y / N
  Y: split. Day 1 ends 12:00 AM; day 2
     starts 12:00 AM. Google ignores day
     2 regular hours; re-enter them:
     ______________________________
  N, ends before noon (UNTESTED, ours):
     A: one set past midnight; next day
        entered with its own hours
     B: split at 12:00 AM; next day =
        12:00 AM-end AND its own hours
     Used: A / B
     Guest target, both dates (open /
     closed / open): ______________

AFTER SAVING
Saved at: ______
Status: Pending / Accepted / Not approved
Status checked at: ______
  Google: usually up to 10 min, sometimes
  up to 30 days. Ours: enter about a
  month ahead. Not a guarantee.
Blue (Google-changed) text?  Y / N
Editor lists every set entered? Y / N
Guest view, Search: ______  Match? Y/N
Guest view, Maps:   ______  Match? Y/N
Overnight: both dates checked in editor
  and guest view?  Y / N
Set missing, rejected, overwritten, or
  can't verify: UNRESOLVED. Stop. Ask
  Google; post hours on own channels.
Updated separately: website __
ordering __  reservations __  phone __

Unknown stays UNKNOWN. No guessed dates.

What this guide doesn't cover

This is a walkthrough of Google's Business Profile help pages as they read on October 6, 2026, not a test on a live profile. Google can change the editor, the rules and the holiday list. Re-read the Special hours page before your holiday season. It covers one profile at a time in the standard editor. Google's bulk spreadsheet has its own Special hours format. Google warns that if an upload includes empty columns, or columns with headings and nothing beneath them, the existing information for those columns is erased. Follow Google's spreadsheet instructions directly if you use that route. Nothing here promises a ranking or more visits.

To check that your website shows the same hours as Google, use the hours and upkeep checklist in what a first restaurant website should include. For the rest of your launch, see getting your first paying customers. You'll find more setup guides in RestaurantLaunch Technology.

Sources

All Google pages below were accessed October 6, 2026. None showed a publication or last-updated date.

• How to set Special hours, Google Business Profile Help
• Edit your business hours, Google Business Profile Help
• How to set More hours, Google Business Profile Help
• Mark your business as closed, Google Business Profile Help. The Special hours page's “Temporarily closed” link redirected to Edit your business hours when we checked; the closing steps are on this page.
• Mark your business as reopened, Google Business Profile Help
• About holidays on Google, Google Business Profile Help
• Guidelines for representing your business on Google (Business hours, Sets of hours), Google Business Profile Help
• Manage your Business Profile owners & managers, Google Business Profile Help
• Understand what happens to your Business Profile edits, Google Business Profile Help
• Understand Google updates on your Business Profile, Google Business Profile Help
• Create a bulk upload spreadsheet for Business Profiles (Hours), Google Business Profile Help