Find the last day to order for holiday delivery
Set the arrival date, your making time and the transit time. Get the latest order time, the last production day and the handoff date, counted back one working day at a time.
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Your order cutoffs
Your dates appear here. Press the button above and this area fills with:
- the latest order time for each product or service
- the last production day and the handoff date
- a day-by-day calendar you can check line by line
- a storefront notice, a CSV and calendar reminders
Backward calendar
Read from the top: each row is one calendar day, counted back from the arrival date to the day orders must be placed.
| Date | Production | Carrier | What happens |
|---|
Storefront notice
Plain wording you can paste into a shop banner, listing or email.
How the dates are counted
- Start at the arrival date. If the carrier does not work that day, the count starts from the last day it does.
- Count back transit days plus buffer on the carrier’s working days. The day you land on is the handoff date.
- Find the last production day. It is the same day as the handoff, or the production day before it, depending on your handoff timing.
- Count back your production days on your own working days. The first of those days, at your cutoff hour, is the latest order time.
Production and carrier days use separate weekends and closed dates, because a shop that packs on Saturday may still hand parcels to a carrier that does not collect on Sunday. The guide How to set holiday order cutoff dates walks through worked examples.
Black Friday, Cyber Monday and December
Each result also shows when an order placed before your cutoff hour on Fri 27 Nov 2026 and Mon 30 Nov 2026 would arrive, plus one more date you choose. If any of those land after your promised date, the line is marked, so you can see how much sale-day demand fits.
Published 2026 reference dates
The US postal service publishes last-mailing dates for the 2026 holidays. Use them as reference points when you choose transit days; the calculator assumes none of them and every number stays yours to set.
| Service level | Published date |
|---|---|
| Domestic ground and first-class parcels | Thu 17 Dec 2026 |
| Domestic priority parcels | Fri 18 Dec 2026 |
| Domestic express parcels | Sat 19 Dec 2026 |
| International priority and first-class parcels | Wed 9 Dec 2026 |
| International express parcels | Wed 16 Dec 2026 |
| Military addresses: priority and first-class | Wed 9 Dec 2026 |
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Questions
What is an order cutoff date?
It is the last moment an order can be placed and still arrive by the date you promise. The calculator counts back from that arrival date through transit days, the handoff and your making days to find it.
How do production days differ from transit days?
Production days are working days you spend making, finishing and packing an item, counted on your calendar. Transit days are working days the parcel spends with the carrier, counted on the carrier's calendar. The two calendars can have different weekends and closed dates, so the calculator keeps them separate.
Why does the arrival date sometimes move earlier?
If the carrier does not work on the arrival date, for example a Sunday or a closed date, a parcel cannot arrive that day. The calculator counts from the last day the carrier does work.
What does the safety buffer do?
It adds spare carrier working days between the handoff and the arrival date, so a short delay does not push a parcel past the date on your storefront.