Bank holiday and special hours on Google Business Profile: a UK calendar

Short answer: use special hours for one-off dates — bank holidays, Boxing Day, staff training days — and leave your regular weekly hours untouched. Set them at least a few weeks ahead so a customer checking your profile the night before a bank holiday sees the truth, not last year's hours.

Anyone searching "how to set up google business profile" for the first time usually finds the basics of opening a profile, but the bank holiday calendar is where UK businesses most often slip. England, Scotland and Northern Ireland don't share exactly the same bank holiday dates, so a business trading across Glasgow and Bristol needs to check GOV.UK for the dates that actually apply to each location.

Regular hours vs special hours vs temporarily closed

Regular hours describe a normal working week and should only change when your actual pattern changes. Special hours override regular hours for a specific date — Easter Monday, the August bank holiday, Boxing Day — and should be set for every date you know is coming. Temporarily closed is a different status entirely, for a longer closure such as a refurbishment, and should only be used when the business is genuinely shut.

How to set special hours, step by step

1. Open your Business Profile and go to hours.
2. Find Special hours and add the date.
3. Enter that day's hours, or mark it closed.
4. Save, then check how it displays on your phone before the date arrives.

A UK holiday calendar worth diarising

• New Year's Day (and 2 January in Scotland)
• Good Friday and Easter Monday
• The early May and spring bank holidays
• The August bank holiday (late August in England, Wales and Northern Ireland; early August in Scotland)
• Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day and the days through to New Year
• Any local event — a Manchester or Leeds city centre event, for example — that changes your trading hours

Because bank holiday dates and observance vary between the UK's nations, check GOV.UK directly for the year in question rather than assuming last year's dates repeat.

Checklist

• Special hours added for every closure in the next three months
• Bank holiday dates checked against GOV.UK for the relevant UK nation
• Regular hours still match how the business actually trades
• Website and phone message agree with the profile
• A short post published if the change affects regular customers

Where Local SEO AI helps

The business profile workspace keeps hours alongside your other details, and reports & actions lists upcoming checks so bank holiday hours become a scheduled task rather than something you remember at the last minute. Pair the change with a short update using the post calendar. Updates to Google require the live connection, which is awaiting Google's approval; view pricing for plan details.