On its China Golden Week 2026 supply-chain guide, SEKO Logistics notes that Mid-Autumn Festival (25-27 September) and National Day Golden Week (1-7 October) sit close together, leaving only 28-30 September as normal mainland working days before the longer shutdown. Adjusted working days fall on 20 September and 10 October under the official calendar.
SEKO warns that factories, trucking, documentation desks, and warehouse handovers often compress into that three-day strip. Cargo that is not ready, inspected, and booked before the window risks waiting until after 8 October, when restart backlogs typically run into mid-October.
Regional Ocean Freight Manager Wallace Wong (Asia Pacific) says carriers are pulling capacity early to defend load factors. Confirmed blanks from Ocean Alliance (~78,000 TEU), MSC (~62,000 TEU), and Gemini (~53,000 TEU) total about 193,000 TEU, and with Premier Alliance FP2 Shanghai omission (~90,000 TEU operational impact) the combined figure reaches roughly 283,000 TEU on Far East-Europe trades. Week 41 is projected as the most constrained period.
Export loading pressure concentrates at Shanghai and Ningbo, with Qingdao, Xiamen, Shenzhen, Yantian, and Busan also named. Downstream European gateways at risk include Rotterdam, Hamburg, Antwerp, London Gateway, and western Med hubs such as Valencia, Barcelona, Genoa, and Fos.
SEKO's practical advice for the final window: focus only on shipments that are ready and confirmed, avoid last-minute pickups without secured capacity, complete invoices and HS codes before staffing thins, and keep airfreight as a backup only for priority SKUs rather than as a catch-all for missed ocean cutoffs.