How to set special hours

Manage your business

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.

Important: Special hours can only be entered if you've already provided normal hours.

How it works

You can set special hours if your business temporarily adjusts its hours of operation or remains closed for up to six days in a row.

When necessary, you can schedule special opening hours for:

• Holidays
• Special events
• Other exceptional circumstances

It's a good idea to confirm your hours for official holidays, even if they’re the same as your normal hours. This makes it clear to customers that your holiday hours are accurate.

Other operation changes

• When to use more hours: If your business provides specific services with differing times, like senior hours, or delivery and takeaway hours, you can set more hours instead of special hours. 
• When to mark as temporarily closed: If your business is closed for seven or more days in a row, or will be closed for an unknown period of time, you should mark your business as Temporarily closed.

Set special hours

1. On your computer, sign in to Google My Business.
   • If you have multiple locations, open the location that you'd like to update.
2. Click Info Special hours.
   Tip: To find this section, you must set normal hours first.
3. To set the hours for an upcoming holiday, click Confirm hours. 
4. To choose a different date, click Add new date.
5. Enter the opening and closing times for that day. 
   • If the location is closed all day, select Closed.
   • If you're open 24 hours, click Opens at 24 hours.
   • If you close after midnight, set the hours to extend the next day.
   • To add another row of hours, click Add hours.
6. After all special hours are set, click Apply.

For two sets of special hours on the same day, enter them in separate rows. For example, if your business opens in the morning, closes for lunch and reopens in the afternoon, enter these special hours in two rows.

Set special hours through spreadsheet

1. In your bulk upload spreadsheet, locate the 'Special hours' column.
2. Enter the affected days and their special hours with 'x' to designate an all-day closure. 
   • For example:
     • 24-hour format: YYYY-MM-DD: HH:MM-HH:MM
     • A.M. or P.M. format: YYYY-MM-DD: HH:MM AM-HH:MM PM
3. Save and import your spreadsheet. Your special hours will appear to customers on Google only for the designated days.

If you only add Special hours to existing locations, you can include only the shop code and special hours columns on the spreadsheet. If you include empty columns or columns with headings but no information beneath them, existing information for those columns will be erased. If you add a new location, you’ll be alerted that you’re missing required column headings.

Tip: Separate each set of hours with a comma. To enter multiple sets of opening hours in one day, separate the sets into two entries with a comma. Learn how to format hours.

• For example, the following represents hours for a business that’s open for two distinct periods on 26 December 2015:
  2015-11-26: x, 2015-12-25: x, 2015-12-26: 10:00-16:00, 2015-12-26: 17:00-18:00, 2016-1-1: 00:00-00:00

Set hours that extend into the next day

Important: A set of special hours can't exceed 24 hours.

If a set of special hours extends through to midnight and up to or past noon the next day, break the hours into multiple sets: 

• One set that runs until the end of the first day
• One set that begins at midnight of the second day 

For example, if your business is open from 7.00 p.m. until 5.00 p.m. the next day, enter your hours as follows:

• 2015-11-26: 19:00-00:00, 2015-11-27: 00:00-17:00

In this case, your normal hours for the second day are ignored in favour of the special hours. If you want to keep any of the next day's hours, include them again in your list of special hours, such as:

• 2015-11-27: 20:00-22:00