Chinese New Year 2027: plan now or pay later

Chinese New Year 2027 falls on January 29, the Year of the Fire Ram. Factories start sending workers home two to three weeks before the holiday and don’t hit full production again until around February 20. If you place an order in December, it probably won’t ship before March. The freight market makes things worse: a 40-foot container from East Asia to Santos traded between $7,000 and $8,000 in September 2026 on the SCFI, compared to $900 to $1,500 at the start of the year. Shipping early isn’t just cautious anymore. It’s a financial decision.

Chinese factories stop before the holiday, and freight rises before the factories stop

Chinese New Year follows the lunar calendar, so the date shifts every year. In 2027, the official holiday runs from January 28 to February 3, but factories stay quiet much longer than that. Workers in Guangdong, Zhejiang, and Jiangsu head home days or weeks early. Production managers shut down the lines once confirmed orders are packed. By the first week of January, effective capacity is already falling. It doesn’t recover until the third week of February.

Freight climbs before the shutdown even starts. Importers who move orders forward all ship around the same time in December and the first two weeks of January. Carriers respond with peak season surcharges and less space per booking. In previous years, the pre-Chinese New Year spike reached 50% above the prevailing rate, according to Drewry. In 2026, the starting point is already high: freight rose from roughly $1,200 per 20-foot container in February to $7,703 for the same equipment in September, a cumulative increase of 374%, based on SCFI indexes tracked by In Time Logistica. Add another 30% to 50% in seasonal surcharges on top of that, and you reach a per-container cost that many mid-sized importers simply did not budget for this year.

Things don’t ease up after the holiday, either. Pent-up demand comes back all at once, while carriers schedule blank sailings in the first weeks of February because there’s no cargo ready at Chinese ports. An importer who left the order until January finds a closed factory on one end and a cancelled sailing on the other.

The shipping window for Brazilian importers closes in November

Transit from Chinese ports to Santos or Paranagua takes between 35 and 45 days, depending on the route and intermediate calls. A container loaded in Ningbo on November 15 reaches Brazil in the first week of January, leaving room for customs clearance before Carnival. A mid-December shipment, even if the importer secures vessel space, lands in late January or early February, when port terminals are busier and cargo dwell times get tighter.

Count backwards and the window looks narrow. If the goods need to be in Brazil by mid-January, the container must leave China by early December. For an early December departure, the booking needs to be confirmed by mid-November. And to confirm the booking, the purchase order must have gone out with enough lead time for production, inspection, and delivery to the origin port. For goods with a 30- to 45-day production cycle, that order should have gone out in October.

Importers who haven’t placed the order yet are still inside the window, but barely. Every week of delay pushes the shipment closer to the period when carriers apply seasonal surcharges and vessel space shrinks. That’s where the choice between spot and contract freight matters most: a volume contract with the freight forwarder locks in space and rate, while spot shippers compete for every booking with everyone else.

Higher freight multiplies the cost of waiting

In Brazil, ocean freight feeds directly into the customs value calculation. The valuation method is CIF: the cost of the goods, insurance, and freight form the base on which five import taxes are assessed (II, IPI, PIS, COFINS, and ICMS). When freight goes up, all five taxes go up with it.

Consider a shipment worth $30,000 FOB in a 20-foot container. At $1,200 freight, transport accounts for 4% of the FOB value. At $7,700, it jumps to 25.7%. If the combined duty and tax rate on that shipment adds up to 50% of CIF value, the $6,500 difference in freight alone generates roughly $3,250 more in taxes, on top of the higher freight itself. All told, the importer pays close to $10,000 more per container compared to the start of the year, once you combine the freight increase with the tax increase that rides on it.

Waiting for freight to drop before importing is a gamble with two sides. The drop may not come in time. In September 2026, the 40-foot container hit $9,616 on the SCFI, and analysts cited by Flux Comex projected rates between $7,000 and $8,000 through mid-November. The Strait of Hormuz conflict, oil above $100 a barrel, and vessel utilization near 98% on the Asia-to-South America route keep prices elevated. And even if freight retreats in December, the Chinese New Year surcharge may claw back part of the decline while vessel space shrinks.

Importers who run the numbers and ship now, at today’s freight, at least lock in the cost and get the goods on time. Those who postpone may end up paying more, receiving later, and burning through free time if the cargo arrives at a congested terminal.

How Tier2 Portal keeps importers informed during a tight window

With a short shipping window and freight changing week to week, importers need to know where each container is without calling or emailing the freight forwarder. Tier2 Portal gives them that. The forwarder’s business partner logs in and sees active shipments with operational milestones, tracks the free-time countdown per container, and pulls up documents and invoices the forwarder has released. All data comes straight from the forwarder’s Tier2 Cargo, and the portal runs on the forwarder’s own domain, under its brand.

When every day counts for customs clearance and container pickup, having the information without an intermediary cuts demurrage risk and helps importers act sooner.

Learn about Tier2 Portal or get in touch.