Why does DHL publish a holiday schedule in advance?

Advance holiday schedules allow shippers to plan shipments around carrier closures, reduce last-minute delays, and set accurate customer delivery expectations. DHL publishes these schedules to enable better supply chain planning across 2025-2026.

How should I incorporate DHL holiday closures into my transportation plan?

Add DHL's published holiday dates to your transportation management system (TMS) and demand planning tools. Schedule critical shipments before closure periods, increase safety stock ahead of holidays, and communicate revised delivery windows to customers.

What's the impact of postal holidays on last-mile delivery?

Postal holidays typically suspend DHL's ground and parcel delivery services, extending transit times and creating capacity bottlenecks. Plan for 1-3 additional days of lead time around major holidays to avoid service level failures.

Are DHL international services affected by Post Office holidays?

While the schedule focuses on Post Office closures, international DHL services may experience limited operations or extended handling times during holiday periods. Verify specific impact on your lanes by contacting DHL directly.

How can I stay updated on changes to DHL's holiday schedule?

Monitor DHL's official carrier communications and subscribe to their newsroom updates. Include holiday schedule reviews in your quarterly transportation planning cycle to capture any amendments or new closure dates.

Shipping & Freight

Low Impact

DHL 2025-2026 Holiday Schedule: Plan Ahead

DHL has published its official Post Office holiday schedule for 2025-2026, providing advance notice of planned service disruptions and facility closures. This annual guidance is routine operational communication that allows shippers and supply chain teams to align shipment timing with carrier availability. While holiday closures are predictable and recurring events, they represent critical planning windows for logistics professionals managing time-sensitive shipments. The advance announcement enables businesses to front-load shipments ahead of peak closure periods or adjust delivery expectations accordingly. For supply chain teams, this notification underscores the importance of maintaining an updated carrier holiday calendar as part of demand planning and transportation management systems. Even routine seasonal disruptions require proactive communication with customers and internal stakeholders to prevent service level agreement violations.

Apr 28, 2026Source: DHL2 min read

Understanding the DHL Holiday Schedule Impact

DHL's publication of its 2025-2026 Post Office holiday schedule represents a routine but essential planning communication for global supply chain teams. While holiday closures are predictable annual events, they create measurable operational friction that demands proactive management across procurement, logistics, and customer service functions.

The announcement serves as a critical reminder that carrier availability is not constant, and assuming 365-day operations without accounting for seasonal closures is a common planning failure. Shippers who fail to incorporate holiday schedules into transportation management systems (TMS) and demand planning tools often face compressed capacity windows, increased shipping costs, and delayed customer deliveries during peak holiday shopping seasons—precisely when inventory velocity matters most.

Operational Implications for Supply Chain Teams

For procurement and logistics teams, the key operational challenge is lead time extension and capacity planning around closure dates. When DHL's Post Office network closes, alternative carriers may experience surge demand, creating cost inflation and service level degradation across the broader parcel market. This bottleneck effect is particularly acute during November-December holiday peaks, when e-commerce demand coincides with reduced carrier capacity.

Supply chain professionals should integrate this schedule into three areas:

Transportation Planning: Update TMS systems to flag DHL capacity constraints during published holiday periods. Model alternative routing through competing carriers (FedEx, UPS, regional providers) and calculate incremental costs associated with diverting volume away from DHL during closure windows.

Demand Planning & Safety Stock: Increase inventory buffers 2-3 weeks ahead of major closures to compensate for extended lead times. For time-sensitive SKUs (pharmaceuticals, perishables, seasonal goods), consider accelerating inbound shipments to finish-goods facilities before closure periods begin.

Customer Communication: Proactively set delivery expectations with downstream customers, particularly in B2C channels where delivery speed influences customer satisfaction metrics. Published holiday schedules should be incorporated into order-to-delivery SLA documentation.

Strategic Forward View

The routine nature of this announcement masks a deeper structural question facing supply chain organizations: How resilient is your carrier-dependent delivery network? Overreliance on a single carrier creates systematic vulnerability to operational disruptions—whether seasonal closures, labor actions, or capacity constraints.

Organizations should view DHL's holiday schedule as a forcing function for carrier diversification strategies and network redundancy planning. Building multi-carrier shipment capability, nearshoring inventory to reduce transit time dependency, and negotiating contractual flexibility during peak periods are strategic investments that reduce holiday-driven service failures.

For 2025-2026, the competitive advantage will accrue to supply chain teams that treat published holiday schedules not as unavoidable constraints, but as planning signals to optimize network design and carrier partnerships ahead of execution crises.

Source: DHL

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