How to keep your holiday hours the same on Google, Apple, Bing and your website
Between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day, a lot of Minnesota businesses close early, close for a day, or open on a day they usually don't. Customers know hours change around the holidays, so they check before they head out. The problem is that they don't all check the same place. One person asks Google, another opens Apple Maps on an iPhone, another searches on Bing, and some go straight to your website.
If those four places show four different sets of hours, at least some of your customers are getting the wrong answer. This guide walks through where to set holiday hours on Google and Apple, how to keep your hours accurate on Bing, and why your Google hours and your website hours should always agree. Every step comes from each company's own help pages.
Why mismatched hours hurt
The cost is simple. If your website says you close at 2 on Christmas Eve and your Google listing still shows your regular hours, someone may drive across town to a locked door.
There are a few platform specific reasons to get this right, too.
Google may show a holiday warning on your profile. Google keeps a list of holidays, and says that on those holidays a warning may appear on your Business Profile telling users your business hours might differ. To let customers know your holiday hours, Google says you can set special hours in advance for those dates (About holidays on Google). For the United States, Google's list includes Thanksgiving (November 26, 2026), Black Friday (November 27), Christmas Eve, Christmas, New Year's Eve, and New Year's Day.
Apple wants your hours to match your website. Apple's guide for business owners says that whenever possible, hours shown on your place card need to match the hours published on your official website (Configure location attributes in Apple Business).
Bing checks your hours against other sources. Bing Places treats hours as one of your listing's basic details, and says those details are controlled through automated validation. You can submit changes, but they're only applied if they align with trusted external data. If inconsistencies are detected, changes may not publish or may be overwritten (Edit your listing). Bing also says it verifies the details business owners submit by comparing them with information available across search engines, websites, and social media, and recommends keeping your details consistent and up to date across all of your online channels (Bing Places introduction).
Put those together and the takeaway is clear: your website is the anchor. Update it first, then make every listing match it.
Step 1: Update your website
Start here, because Apple and Bing both point back to it. Put your holiday hours somewhere easy to find, such as your contact page, the hours in your footer, or a short note on your home page. List each date that's different, with either "Closed" or your open and close times. When the holidays are over, take the note down so your regular hours are the only ones showing.
Step 2: Set special hours on Google
Google calls holiday hours "special hours." They let you change your hours for a short time without touching your regular hours. Google's steps (How to set Special hours):
- Go to your Business Profile.
- Select Edit profile, then Hours.
- In the "Business hours" section, next to "Special hours," select Edit (the pencil icon).
- Select the date. To confirm a date Google suggests, select Review. To set your own date, select Add a date and enter it.
- Update your hours. If you're open that day, uncheck the "Closed" box and enter your open and close times. If you're closed all day, make sure the "Closed" box is checked.
- Select Save.
A few details from the same page are worth knowing:
- Confirm holidays even if your hours don't change. Google says it's a good idea to confirm your hours for official holidays even if they're the same as your regular hours, because it makes it clear to customers that your hours are accurate.
- Special hours only show if you have main hours. For special hours to show up on your Business Profile, your business hours need to be set to "Open with main hours."
- Special hours are for short changes. They cover changing your hours or closing for up to 6 days in a row. If you're closed for 7 or more days in a row, or for an unknown period of time, Google says to mark your business as Temporarily closed instead.
After you save, Google says you can find your special hours in the "Hours" tab in your "Business information," or in "Edit profile" under "Special hours."
Step 3: Set special hours on Apple Maps
Apple's tool for managing your Apple Maps place card is Apple Business. If you knew it by its old name, Apple's help site confirms it was renamed from Apple Business Connect (Apple Business User Guide).
To update a location, Apple's steps are (Edit or remove a single location in Apple Business):
- Sign in to Apple Business with a user whose role has permission to manage locations.
- In your browser, choose Brands > Locations.
- Sort or search for your location, then select it.
- Under Special hours, adjust your hours for the holidays.
- Select Save.
Apple calls holiday hours "temporary hours." You can set them for a single day or a range of dates, and mark the location either open or closed (Configure location attributes in Apple Business). Two things to know:
- Enter the time you're open, not the time you're closed. Apple says temporary hours can't record the stretch of time when your location is closed. If you're open only part of a day, enter just the hours you're open. If you're closed all day, add the day as temporary hours marked closed.
- Holiday open hours need to be different from your normal hours. This differs from Google, which suggests confirming holidays even when your hours don't change. On Apple, you only add holiday open hours when they actually differ from your standard hours.
Step 4: Check your hours on Bing
Bing Places for Business now lives at bing.com/forbusiness. To change your listing, sign in, select your business listing, and click Edit (Edit your listing). Hours are in your listing's basic details, and Bing lets you add up to two time slots per day (Data quality guidelines).
The most important thing about Bing is timing. Bing's FAQ says updates such as business details, photos, or hours may take 7 to 12 days to process, plus additional time to appear on Bing after publishing. It also says that making frequent changes while your listing is processing may cause delays, so wait for one round of changes to finish before making more (Frequently asked questions).
The Bing Places help pages we checked don't describe a separate setting for holiday or date specific hours, so this guide doesn't give Bing holiday steps. What you can do is make sure the hours Bing shows are accurate well before the holidays. Because updates can take 7 to 12 days, make any corrections early, in one pass, then leave the listing alone.
If you already keep your Google Business Profile up to date, Bing offers a sync. Bing says connecting your Google Business Profile can import your business information, including hours of operation, and that updates made on Google may sync to Bing, though timing can vary (Sync your Google Business Profile with Bing Places). Even with sync turned on, check your live Bing listing before each holiday.
A simple holiday hours checklist
- Write down every date from Thanksgiving through New Year's Day where your hours are different, plus any holiday where you're open your regular hours.
- Update your website first.
- Set special hours on Google, and confirm the holidays where your hours don't change.
- Set temporary hours on Apple for the dates that differ.
- Check your Bing hours early, make any corrections in one pass, and give them time to publish.
- Search for your business on each platform afterward and check that the hours match your website.
- After New Year's Day, remove any holiday note from your website.
If you'd rather hand it off
If you'd rather not log in to three dashboards and your website for every holiday, Pastel Brands' Holiday Hours Sync does it for you. You tell us your Thanksgiving through New Year hours once, and we update your listings on Google, Apple, and Bing and, with your approval, your website, so customers see the same hours wherever they look.