--- title: "Holiday Hours in Québec: Updating Your Listing in Time" description: "Holiday hours in Québec: set special hours in Google My Business weeks before each statutory holiday so your listing, website and door sign all match." canonical: "https://socialinfluencebuilder.com/en/blog/holiday-hours-google-listing-quebec/" lastmod: "2017-09-18T14:33:00+00:00" lang: "en-CA" format: "markdown" --- HTML version: # Holiday Hours in Québec: Updating Your Listing in Time > **Archive note.** This article describes the situation as it stood when it was published. The rules, tools and features it mentions may have changed since. Check the current information with the official source before acting. Holiday hours in Québec: set your special hours in Google My Business weeks before each holiday, not the night before. I run Social Influence Builder out of Mascouche, and every fall I watch small business owners across Greater Montréal get caught by the same thing. A customer drives out on a statutory holiday, the listing still shows the regular schedule, and the door is locked. The fix takes a few minutes, but only if you do it early. This is the routine I use to keep a listing accurate through every Québec holiday. ## Holiday hours in Québec: set special hours on your Google listing before each holiday Set your special hours in Google My Business at least a couple of weeks before each Québec statutory holiday, so the change is live long before anyone checks. Sign into your listing, open the hours settings, and add a special hours entry for the holiday date. Enter the hours you will actually keep, or mark the location closed. If the holiday hours on your Google listing are wrong, people show up when you are shut, and that is exactly the frustration worth avoiding. I handle [Google My Business management](/en/services/google-business-profile/) for my clients so the listing stays accurate across the whole Québec calendar, without anyone having to remember each deadline on their own. ## Special hours in Google My Business: how a pre-set date overrides regular hours Once you add a special hours entry for a date, Google My Business uses those hours instead of your regular schedule on that day, then reverts to normal on its own afterward. You do not delete or pause your regular hours. You set the exception once, and the listing handles the switch on the day itself. | Scenario | Regular hours | Special hours | | --- | --- | --- | | Fête nationale | 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. | Closed | | An ordinary Tuesday | 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. | Not set | | Thanksgiving | 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. | 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. | Because you choose the date yourself, the feature is not limited to holidays. A one-off closure for inventory or a staff day works the same way. Set each date ahead of time and the listing shows the right hours before anyone visits. ## Québec statutory holidays a local business plans hours around Québec recognizes a specific set of statutory holidays, and a few days that close shops elsewhere in Canada are not on that provincial list. The holidays set out by the CNESST are: - New Year's Day - Good Friday or Easter Monday, at the employer's choice - Journée nationale des patriotes - Fête nationale, June 24 - July 1 - Labour Day, the first Monday of September - Thanksgiving, the second Monday of October - Christmas One Québec quirk worth planning for is July 1, which is moving day for a lot of households. That shifts foot traffic for hardware stores, rental businesses and anyone serving people mid-move, so if your hours change that day, put it on the listing. ### Boxing Day and Remembrance Day: common closures that are not Québec statutory holidays Boxing Day (December 26) and Remembrance Day (November 11) trip up a lot of owners, because neither is a Québec statutory holiday even though both close businesses in other provinces. You are not required to close or change your hours on either day. Many owners close anyway out of habit or preference, and that is fine. The trouble starts when the listing still says open and someone arrives at a locked door. Decide your hours for both days before the season hits, then set special hours for each date. If you stay open while neighbours close, say so plainly, since that is the day a searcher assumes everyone is shut. ## Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's: the next dates to set this fall Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day are the three Québec statutory holidays coming up this fall, and they are the dates to set now while it is on your mind. All three are actual statutory holidays, so most businesses close or shorten their hours. Set the special hours weeks ahead, and do the same anywhere else customers find you, including Facebook. Handle Thanksgiving first, then come back for Christmas and New Year's together rather than leaving all three to the last week of December. ## Missing special hours: what a customer sees and does With no special hours set, your listing simply shows the regular schedule on the holiday, so a customer reads it as open, drives over, and finds the door locked. Here is how that plays out. | What the listing shows | What the customer does | | --- | --- | | Regular hours on a holiday | Arrives and finds you closed | | Hours that do not match your website | Hesitates, or calls to confirm | | A competitor with correct holiday hours | Chooses them instead | That last row is the quiet one. You do not lose the customer with any drama. They just pick someone whose hours they can trust, and you never hear about it. Setting the special hours removes that doubt before it costs you the visit. ## Listing, website and door sign: keeping all three hours identical Your Google My Business listing, your website and your door sign all need to show the same holiday hours, because a customer who checks online before driving out loses confidence the moment the times disagree. I tell my clients to treat the three as one system. Before the holiday, run through this: - Update the hours page on your website - Post a door sign with the exact dates and times - Check any pinned social posts that mention hours - Confirm the listing one last time after the other changes are done When all three agree, the customer trusts what they read and comes in, instead of standing on the sidewalk wondering whether you are open. ## Holiday-hours calendar checklist for the year Build a simple calendar at the start of the year that lists every Québec statutory holiday, with a reminder set a couple of weeks earlier to update your listing, website and door sign. Planning it once beats scrambling the night before every holiday. | Holiday | Date | Reminder | | --- | --- | --- | | Fête nationale | June 24 | Early June | | July 1 | July 1 | Mid June | | Labour Day | First Monday of September | Mid August | | Thanksgiving | Second Monday of October | Late September | | Christmas | December 25 | Early December | | New Year's Day | January 1 | Mid December | Set those reminders in your phone or calendar app right now. Good [local SEO](/en/glossary/#seo-local) is mostly small, consistent habits like this one, and once the habit is built, keeping your hours accurate stops being something you scramble for. Further reading: for a similar project, see [Barranco](/en/barranco-montreal/). ## Go further - **Service:** [Google Business Profile Optimization for Montreal Businesses](https://socialinfluencebuilder.com/en/services/google-business-profile/) - **Case study:** [Barranco Montréal](https://socialinfluencebuilder.com/en/barranco-montreal/) - **Glossary:** [Digital marketing glossary: Local SEO](https://socialinfluencebuilder.com/en/glossary/#seo-local)