Preparing for Chinese New Year & peak season

Around Chinese New Year (CNY) and the pre-holiday peak season, Chinese factories close, freight rates climb, and vessel and air space become scarce. The single best defense is to book early and stay flexible — plan ocean FCL roughly 3–4 weeks ahead of your Cargo Ready Date, and share a forecast with your Prime Freight team as far in advance as you can.

Chinese New Year (also called the Lunar New Year or Spring Festival) is the largest holiday of the year in China, and it moves with the lunar calendar — typically falling between late January and mid-February. Its effects are predictable:

• Factories close. Plants shut for at least the holiday week, and because many workers travel home, closures, delays, and reduced capacity stretch across roughly four weeks around the holiday.

• Rates rise sharply. Ocean and air rates climb well before CNY — often starting to move up around a month ahead — then ease off for a week or two afterward. Carriers announce General Rate Increases (GRI) and Peak Season Surcharges (PSS) as the holiday approaches, often at the last minute to keep the market guessing.

• Space gets tight. Carriers overbook earlier than usual and run blank sailings (canceled departures) to match capacity to demand. Space is scarce right before CNY, and services thin out in the week or two after. Truckers are also harder to book and more expensive.

Separately, in the second half of the year, importers rush to stock up for the winter holidays. Import volumes surge and, with them, ocean and air rates. Peak season is known for volatile pricing, rolled cargo, trucking delays, and port congestion. A key milestone is Golden Week (the national holiday in early October): to land ocean shipments in time for the winter holidays, book before Golden Week — especially for U.S. East Coast destinations.

The same playbook works for both crunches:

• Book early. For ocean FCL, book about 3–4 weeks ahead of your Cargo Ready Date. For air, book roughly 6–7 days ahead. The earlier, the better.

• Watch your Cargo Ready Date. Ready dates often slip before CNY as factories run flat out. Follow up closely with your supplier.

• Split multiple containers across separate Bills of Lading. That way, if one shipment is rolled, it doesn't hold up all of your containers.

• Consider air. If you have a hard retailer deadline or you're about to run out of inventory, air is an option — but air space also tightens before CNY, so don't leave it to the last minute. See Types of air service.

• Trade a little transit time for reliability. The fastest services are the first to overbook. Choosing a routing that's a few days slower makes it less likely your cargo gets rolled to the following week.

• Be flexible on the discharge port. If your cargo moves inland anyway, staying flexible on the port of discharge opens up more sailings to choose from.

• Watch for extra charges. Expect higher rates on both air and ocean, trucker waiting fees at congested ports, and possible chassis split charges where equipment is short.

• Get your customs details right. Put HTS codes on your Commercial Invoice — especially for new products — and assign a fair value to every line, including free-of-charge (FOC) items. U.S. Customs won't accept a $0 line item. See Commercial Invoice & Packing List.

If you're shipping to Amazon for a major sales event, tag and plan your FBA shipments before sailing and mind Amazon's holiday cutoff dates.

We work closely with carriers and partners through these periods and share market updates as new capacity and pricing information comes in. The most valuable thing you can give us is an early forecast — the sooner we know what's coming, the better we can secure space and rates. When in doubt, talk to your dedicated account team.

• Rolled cargo explained

• Port congestion & what it means for your cargo

• Demurrage & detention

• FCL vs LCL vs parcel: which to choose

• Freight & shipping glossary