China's major holiday periods — Golden Week in October and Lunar New Year being the two largest — compress shipping capacity into a short window before factories close, then leave a slower restart period afterward. Both ends of that window affect transit reliability.
Ocean freight capacity is usually booked out furthest in advance, since carriers allocate space on fixed sailing schedules that do not flex much for demand spikes. Rail and road have somewhat more flexibility but are not immune — Central Asia and Europe-bound rail slots in particular tighten as factories rush to ship before shutting down.
The practical response is straightforward: if a shipment needs to move in the two to three weeks before a major holiday, book it earlier than you otherwise would, and build in a wider delivery window than usual. Cargo that can wait until after the restart period often moves more predictably than cargo squeezed into the pre-holiday rush.
If you are planning a shipment anywhere near one of these windows, it is worth raising the date early — the routing and equipment decisions we would recommend can shift depending on how close a booking sits to a holiday shutdown.