Google Business Profile Holiday Hours: A Diwali Guide for Branches

A customer drives to your Koramangala outlet on Diwali evening because Google Maps said "Open", and finds the shutter down. That one wasted trip can cost you a customer, and sometimes a one-star review. Setting your Google Business Profile holiday hours before the festival week stops this from happening, and it takes a few minutes per branch, or a single spreadsheet if you run many.

This guide covers the exact steps Google gives for special hours, the rules that trip people up, and a simple plan for brands and agencies that need to update 10, 50 or 500 locations before Diwali (Sunday, 8 November 2026) and the days around it.

What are special hours on Google Business Profile?

Google calls holiday hours "special hours". In Google's words, "when your hours of operation change for a brief period of time, like for a special event, you can set special hours so that your regular hours don't change."

That last part matters. Special hours apply only to the dates you pick. Your normal weekly timings stay as they are, so you do not have to remember to change everything back after the festival.

Google lists three uses for special hours:

Holidays
Special events
Other exceptional circumstances

So special hours are the right tool for Diwali, Eid, Christmas, Pongal, Onam, a regional bandh you know about in advance, or a stock-taking day. Google's special hours help page is the official reference for everything in this section and the next.

How to set Google Business Profile holiday hours for one location

If you manage a single clinic, salon or restaurant, do this from your Business Profile on Google Search or Maps. These are the steps Google lists:

Go to your Business Profile and select Edit profile, then Hours.
Next to "Special hours", select Edit.
Pick the date. You can review a suggested date, add a custom date, or edit one you already added.
Set the hours. Tick Closed if you are shut all day. Untick it and enter times if you are open.
If you open twice in a day, for example a morning and an evening slot, select More, then Add hours.
Select Save.

To remove a date later, Google says to select Delete next to a closed date, or More and then Remove day next to a date with hours.

A worked example

Say a dental clinic in Indiranagar normally opens 10:00 to 20:00. For the festival week it plans:

Date	Plan	What to enter
Fri 6 Nov (Dhanteras)	Short day	10:00 to 14:00
Sat 7 Nov	Normal	Nothing, regular hours apply
Sun 8 Nov (Diwali)	Closed	Tick "Closed"
Mon 9 Nov	Closed	Tick "Closed"
Tue 10 Nov	Evening only	16:00 to 20:00

Only the changed days need an entry. Saturday keeps its regular hours on its own.

Rules that catch businesses out

Most holiday-hours mistakes come from four rules on Google's help pages. Check each one before the festival.

Special hours only show if you have main hours

Google says: "For special hours to show up on your Business Profile, set your business hours to 'Open with main hours.'" If your profile has no regular hours, or is set to show no hours, your Diwali timings will not appear. Fix the regular hours first.

Six days at most

Special hours are meant for short changes. Google limits them to up to 6 consecutive days. If you will be closed for 7 or more days in a row, or for an unknown period, Google says you should mark the business as Temporarily closed instead.

This is common for small manufacturers, coaching centres and family-run shops in some cities that shut for a full week after Diwali. If that is you, use Temporarily closed, then reopen the profile when you are back. For reopening, Google's steps are: Edit profile, then Hours, select Open with main hours, tick the open days, set times and Save.

One set of hours cannot be longer than 24 hours

A sweet shop in Old Delhi that stays open from 19:00 on Diwali night to 05:00 the next morning cannot enter that as one block. Google says a set of special hours can't exceed 24 hours, so you split it at midnight:

Day one: 19:00 to 00:00
Day two: 00:00 to 05:00

Confirm official holidays even if nothing changes

Google suggests: "It's a good idea to confirm your hours for official holidays, even if they're the same as your regular hours." A supermarket in Andheri that stays open on Diwali with normal timings should still add that date with its normal hours. It tells customers you are open, instead of leaving them to guess.

Special hours vs More hours vs Temporarily closed

These three settings sound alike but do different jobs.

Setting	Use it when	Festival example
Special hours	Your hours change for specific dates, up to 6 days in a row	Restaurant closes at 18:00 on Diwali
More hours	A service has its own timings, such as delivery or takeout hours	Cloud kitchen's delivery hours run later than its dine-in hours
Temporarily closed	You will be closed 7 or more days in a row, or for an unknown period	Factory outlet in Ludhiana shuts for 10 days after Diwali

"More hours" is not for one-off holidays. It describes services with different times on a regular basis. Use special hours for festival changes.

Setting holiday hours for many branches at once

If you run a pharmacy chain across Pune or a bank with 120 branches, editing each profile by hand is slow and easy to get wrong. Google offers bulk tools for businesses with 10 or more locations in Business Profile Manager. Google's bulk upload help page covers the full process. In short:

Download your current data. In Business Profile Manager, select the profiles, click Actions at the top right, then under "Download" click Businesses, choose the file type and download.
Trim the sheet. Google says that if you only want to update particular fields, you can include only the store code column and the fields you want to change. For holiday hours, that means the store code (also labelled business code) and the special hours column.
Fill in the special hours. Use the format YYYY-MM-DD: HH:MM-HH:MM (24-hour or AM/PM). Use x for a full-day closure and separate dates with commas.
Upload. Sign in to Business Profile Manager, click Add business, choose Import businesses, then Select file. Accepted formats are .xls, .xlsx, .ods and .csv.
Preview and apply. Click Preview changes, check the proposed updates, then click Apply. If something looks wrong, click Cancel and fix the sheet.

For the Indiranagar clinic in the earlier table, the special hours cell would read:

2026-11-06: 10:00-14:00, 2026-11-08: x, 2026-11-09: x, 2026-11-10: 16:00-20:00

A Diwali-night sweet shop splits its late hours like this:

2026-11-08: 19:00-00:00, 2026-11-09: 00:00-05:00

Watch the preview carefully

Google warns that the import will alert you to missing required headers or unexpected changes, which often happen when cells are deleted and values shift across rows. In a 300-row sheet, one shifted row can give your Chennai branch the Lucknow branch's timings. Read the preview line by line for a sample of branches before you apply.

A festival hours plan for brands and agencies

Bulk tools fix the mechanics. The harder part is getting correct timings from every store manager in time. Here is a simple routine that works for most networks.

Three weeks out: collect timings. Send each branch a one-line form: date, open or closed, hours. Regional holidays differ, so a branch in Kolkata may plan around different days than one in Ahmedabad.
Two weeks out: build one master sheet. One row per branch, keyed by store code. Flag any branch closing 7 or more days in a row, since those need Temporarily closed, not special hours.
Ten days out: check main hours. Any branch without "Open with main hours" will not show special hours. Fix these first.
One week out: upload and review. Upload, preview, apply. Then spot-check a few profiles on Google Maps from a phone.
Festival week: watch for Google updates. Google says it may update your profile using information from sources like user reports, and those updates show on Maps and Search. Check that your festival hours have not been changed. A tool that alerts you when hours or other key details change saves you from checking hundreds of profiles by hand.
After the festival: reopen anyone you closed. Every branch you marked Temporarily closed needs to be set back to open with its regular hours when it reopens. Google's steps to mark your business as reopened include a bulk option: select the locations in Business Profile Manager, click Actions, then Open, then Mark as open.

Google is not the only place customers check timings. Apple Maps, Bing and many directories show your hours too, so update your festival timings there as well. If you manage listings across several platforms, a service that pushes holiday hours to Google, Bing, Apple Maps and other directories at once keeps them consistent.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to set holiday hours if I am open as usual on Diwali?

Google recommends confirming your hours for official holidays even if they match your regular hours. It is a small step, and it tells customers you are open.

Can I set special hours for two weeks of Diwali and wedding season?

No. Special hours cover up to 6 consecutive days. For a closure of 7 or more days, Google says to mark the business as Temporarily closed. If you are open but on different timings for weeks, consider whether those are really your regular hours for the season. Google's hours guidelines allow you to use your current seasonal hours as your regular hours.

Why are my special hours not showing on Google Maps?

Check that your regular business hours are set to "Open with main hours". Google says special hours only show when they are. Also check that no single set of hours runs past midnight in one block.

Can agencies use the bulk upload for clients?

Bulk tools in Business Profile Manager are built for businesses with 10 or more locations. Google also notes that agencies with more than one business in one account can't bulk verify, so check how your client accounts are set up before you plan a bulk workflow. For running hours updates across many brands and branches, a multi-location dashboard keeps it in one place.

Before you close the laptop

Holiday hours are a small task with a visible payoff: fewer wasted trips, fewer angry calls, and fewer "it said open but it was closed" reviews. Set your main hours first, add special hours for each changed date, use Temporarily closed for long shutdowns, and reopen those branches when the festival ends. If you run many locations, one well-checked spreadsheet does the work of a hundred manual edits.

If you want to see how each of your branches shows up on Google Maps this festive season, talk to the RankMonk team.