UPS Holiday Schedule 2026: Which Days They Deliver, Which They Don’t (and FedEx Too)

It is ten in the morning on Thanksgiving, the kitchen already smells like onions, and you’ve pulled the tracking page up on your phone for the third time since you got out of bed. The status still says “In Transit.” The estimated delivery still says “Thursday.” You refresh. Same thing. You tilt the phone, as if that might help.

And then it lands: nobody is driving a brown truck today. Nobody is driving a purple-and-orange one either. The “Thursday” on your screen was a promise made by software that doesn’t eat turkey.

That is why the UPS holiday schedule exists as a published document. Carriers close on some days, half-close on others, and quietly keep a few services running on the rest. Know which is which and a stalled tracking page becomes boring instead of alarming.

So here is the stretch from Veterans Day to New Year’s Day 2027, one holiday at a time, UPS first and FedEx beneath it, with store counters, weekend rules and the one distinction that explains almost everything: no pickup is not the same as no delivery.

Veterans Day (Wednesday, 11 November 2026)

Veterans Day catches people out because it is a federal holiday and yet the big private carriers treat it as a normal working Wednesday. The confusion comes from the post office. USPS doesn’t run on 11 November, and both UPS and FedEx hand some of their cheaper parcels to USPS for the last stretch, so a slice of packages pause even though the trucks are rolling.

UPS

UPS is open. Pickups happen, deliveries happen, and The UPS Store locations keep their usual hours. If your parcel is travelling on UPS Ground, Air or an international service, 11 November is just another day on the route.

The exception is UPS Ground Saver (the economy service that often finishes its journey with the postal carrier). UPS says Ground Saver and UPS Mail Innovations need one additional business day in transit around Veterans Day, because the USPS leg is on holiday even if the UPS leg isn’t. So if your retailer shipped the cheap way and the estimate said Wednesday, read it as Thursday and save yourself a refresh.

FedEx

FedEx lists Veterans Day as “modified service” rather than open or closed. In practice that means deliveries continue, but some on-call pickups and drop-box collections happen earlier than usual, and a few drop boxes are skipped altogether. FedEx Office is open. If you are receiving rather than sending, the modification is close to invisible.

Same USPS caveat applies: FedEx Ground Economy (the service that used to be called SmartPost) relies on the post office for the final mile, so an economy parcel may sit for a day.

Thanksgiving (Thursday, 26 November 2026)

This is the big one, and the answer is clean: nothing ordinary moves on Thanksgiving Day for either carrier. The sorting hubs go quiet, the delivery routes aren’t run, and the estimate on your tracking page that says “Thursday, 26 November” was generated before the calendar got a vote.

UPS

No pickup, no delivery. The only UPS service that operates is UPS Express Critical, a 365-day emergency courier run through a partner called Marken. It is the sort of service hospitals use to move a transplant organ, not the sort that brings your air fryer. If your parcel wasn’t booked as Express Critical, it isn’t coming today.

The UPS Store is listed as “limited locations” on the official UPS holiday schedule for 2026, which is a polite way of saying most are shut. Each store is independently owned, so a handful may open for a few hours. Check your local one rather than assuming.

FedEx

Closed, with the same single exception: FedEx Custom Critical, the premium time-critical arm, keeps running. FedEx Office is closed. There is no FedEx Ground, Home Delivery or Express delivery on 26 November.

Worth noting for senders: the day before Thanksgiving (Wednesday, 25 November) is already a “modified service” day at FedEx. On-call pickups and drop-box collections happen early in some areas, and FedEx Office locations shorten their hours. If you were planning to drop a return box at four in the afternoon on the Wednesday, go at lunchtime.

The Day After Thanksgiving (Friday, 27 November 2026)

Black Friday is a shopping holiday, not a carrier holiday. Both networks are back, which surprises people who assume the long weekend is a long weekend for everyone.

UPS

Fully open: pickups, deliveries, The UPS Store. Expect the Friday to be busy rather than slow, because everything that would have moved on Thursday is now moving along with Friday’s own volume. A parcel that was due Thursday will typically show up Friday or Saturday.

FedEx

Open, but labelled “modified service” on the 2026 schedule, which again means early on-call pickups and some drop-box closures. Deliveries run. FedEx Office is open. If you need to post something that day, use a staffed counter rather than a box on the street, because the box may already have been emptied.

FedEx also notes that from 23 November through 4 January, delivery commitment times on its time-definite overnight and 2Day services are extended by 90 minutes. A “by 10:30 a.m.” promise becomes a “by noon” promise. An early-morning delivery that arrives late morning during this window isn’t a failure; it’s the published peak-season rule.

Christmas Eve (Thursday, 24 December 2026)

Christmas Eve is the day where the difference between “no pickup” and “no delivery” earns its keep. Both carriers are delivering. Neither is collecting the way they normally would.

UPS

Delivery: yes, for everything. UPS Air, international Air, UPS Standard and UPS Ground packages all get delivered on 24 December. If your UPS tracking says Christmas Eve, that is a real date.

Pickup: Air and international Air only, and only if prearranged by Friday, 18 December. There is no UPS Ground pickup on Christmas Eve at all. For a shopper, this matters in one specific way: if you drop a return at a UPS Access Point or a UPS Store on the 24th, it will be scanned in but probably won’t leave the building until the 28th. Your tracking will show “dropped off” for a few days and that is normal.

The UPS Store is open on Christmas Eve, usually with shorter hours. This is the busiest counter day of the year, so go in the morning.

FedEx

Delivery: yes. FedEx runs “modified service” on 24 December, which covers early on-call pickups, drop-box closures in some areas, and modified Ground pickups. Deliveries continue, including Home Delivery to residences.

FedEx Office has modified hours on Christmas Eve with some locations closing early. Same advice: morning, not afternoon. Wednesday 23 December, by contrast, is a normal open day at FedEx; if you can choose between the 23rd and the 24th, the 23rd behaves like a Tuesday.

Christmas Day (Friday, 25 December 2026)

Nobody is delivering your parcel on Christmas Day. We’ll keep this short because a separate post covers the Christmas Eve and Christmas Day specifics; here is the operational summary.

UPS

No pickup, no delivery, UPS Express Critical only. The UPS Store is “limited locations”, meaning almost all are closed. A parcel that was due on Christmas Day either arrived on the 24th or is now a Saturday or Monday parcel. If your status says “Out for Delivery” on the 25th, that is a display quirk and not a van.

FedEx

Closed. FedEx Office closed. FedEx Custom Critical only. Saturday 26 December is listed as fully open, and because FedEx Home Delivery runs on Saturdays as standard, a parcel delayed by Christmas Day can genuinely land on Boxing Day in the US.

New Year’s Eve (Thursday, 31 December 2026)

New Year’s Eve is the sneaky one. People assume it works like Christmas Eve. For UPS, it doesn’t, and this is the single most useful fact in the whole UPS holiday schedule.

UPS

Delivery: Air and international Air packages only. There is no UPS Ground delivery on 31 December. Read that twice. If your parcel is on UPS Ground, which is what most retailers use for ordinary orders, and the estimate said 31 December, it was never going to come on the 31st. Expect Saturday 2 January or Monday 4 January instead.

Pickup: Air and international Air only, and only if prearranged by Monday, 28 December. No Ground pickup.

The UPS Store: “limited locations” on New Year’s Eve, a notch more closed than Christmas Eve. If you need the counter, phone first.

FedEx

FedEx is more generous. 31 December is “modified service” with deliveries running, early pickups, some drop-box closures and modified Ground pickups. FedEx Office has modified hours with some early closures. So a FedEx Home Delivery parcel due on the 31st can still arrive on the 31st, while a UPS Ground parcel due on the 31st will not.

New Year’s Day (Friday, 1 January 2027)

The season ends the way it began on Thanksgiving: with both networks dark for ordinary parcels.

UPS

No pickup, no delivery, Express Critical only. The UPS Store is “limited locations”. UPS Air & Ocean Freight is closed too, in case your delivery is a sofa rather than a sweater. Normal service resumes on Monday 4 January, though UPS delivers ground residential parcels on Saturdays, so Saturday 2 January is a live possibility for a package already deep in the network.

FedEx

Closed on 1 January, Custom Critical only, FedEx Office closed. Saturday 2 January is listed as open, and because FedEx Home Delivery operates on Saturdays (and in many areas on Sundays), a residential parcel can arrive over that first weekend of the year.

The Whole Season on One Page

Everything above, condensed. The emergency couriers (UPS Express Critical, FedEx Custom Critical) run every day and are left out of the table. Dates come from the 2026 schedules both carriers have published, and both say the schedule can change, so glance at the official page again the week before each holiday.

Two things about weekends, because the table leans on them. UPS delivers Monday to Saturday for residential parcels and does not pick up or deliver on Sundays. FedEx Home Delivery, the residential ground service, runs Saturdays and reaches a large share of US addresses on Sundays too. So a FedEx parcel can rescue itself over a weekend in a way a UPS parcel cannot.

And for readers outside the US, the one-line equivalents. Royal Mail makes no collections or deliveries on Christmas Day (Friday 25 December), Boxing Day (Saturday 26 December), the substitute bank holiday on Monday 28 December, and New Year’s Day; otherwise it delivers six days a week including Saturdays. Canada Post is closed on Remembrance Day (11 November), Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day, and when a holiday lands on a weekend it is observed on the next business day, so expect Monday 28 December to be quiet. Australia Post makes no mail or parcel deliveries, including Express Post, on Christmas Day, Boxing Day or New Year’s Day, and most post offices are shut on those days.

How a Holiday Moves Your Delivery Date

The calendar tells you which days are dead. This section tells you what that does to the date on your screen, because the two are not the same thing and the gap between them is where the worry lives.

Pickup vs Delivery: The Distinction That Explains Every Row of the UPS Holidays 2026 List

A carrier’s day has two halves. Drivers go out in the morning with a van full of deliveries, and through the day they also collect outbound parcels from businesses, drop boxes and stores. “No pickup” means the second half is cancelled: nothing new enters the network. “No delivery” means the first half is cancelled: nothing leaves it.

On Christmas Eve, UPS runs deliveries but not Ground pickups. As a receiver, that is a normal day. As a sender, your return box sits until the 28th. On New Year’s Eve, UPS runs Air deliveries but not Ground ones, so your receiving experience depends entirely on which service the retailer paid for. The service name is usually printed next to the tracking number in the shipping confirmation email.

The Estimate Was Right Until It Wasn’t

Delivery estimates are calculated when the label is created, from the service’s published transit time counted in business days. Carriers fold their own holidays into that count, so a parcel labelled on 20 November with a five-business-day service should already skip Thanksgiving. What the estimate cannot see is the USPS holiday on the economy services, the volume surge that makes Black Friday’s sort run late, or your parcel reaching the local depot at 7 p.m. on the 24th and missing the last van.

So an estimate that moves by a day is the system catching up with reality, not a sign of trouble. An estimate that moves by a week usually comes with a reason attached. The business-day count is the whole trick to estimating delivery time in a holiday week: count the working days, skip the ones on this page, and the new date stops looking random.

Why the UPS Christmas Schedule Is Kinder Than the New Year’s One

Look at the two eves side by side. Christmas Eve: all UPS deliveries run. New Year’s Eve: Air deliveries only. The pattern isn’t random. Christmas Eve is the last day a gift can usefully arrive, so UPS keeps every delivery service on. New Year’s Eve has no gift deadline behind it, so UPS treats it as a near-holiday and parks the Ground fleet. The practical rule: mentally re-date a UPS Ground parcel with a 31 December estimate to Saturday 2 January or Monday 4 January.

What a Dead Day Looks Like on Your Tracking Page

On a closed day the status simply doesn’t change. “In Transit” on Wednesday night stays “In Transit” all Thursday. If the last scan on your FedEx tracking or UPS page was “Arrived at Facility” at the local hub, your parcel is on a shelf in that building and will go out on the first working morning. That is the best possible place for it to be stuck.

The status that confuses people is “Out for Delivery” appearing on a closed day. Occasionally a parcel is loaded onto a van the night before, scanned, and then the van doesn’t run. It will show up on the next working day; nothing has been lost. If the status hasn’t moved for several working days, not just holiday ones, that is the point to read up on what “in transit” means when it drags on.

The Day-After Pile-Up

Every closed day creates a double-volume day right after it. Friday 27 November carries Thursday’s parcels plus Friday’s own. Monday 28 December carries the weekend’s backlog plus Christmas Day’s. Monday 4 January carries three days’ worth. This rarely adds a full day to a parcel already in the network, but it does mean later-than-usual drops: a parcel that normally shows up at 11 a.m. might come at 6 p.m.

If you are juggling several orders across both carriers at once, which in December is most of us, a universal tracker such as Parcel Monitor shows every parcel’s last scan on one screen so you aren’t checking seven tabs on a day when none of them will move. Connecting it to your inbox with Email Sync means new orders appear without copying tracking numbers across.

Saturdays Are the Pressure Valve

Most holidays in this calendar fall on a Thursday or Friday, which means the Saturday after each one is doing a lot of work. UPS runs Saturday ground residential delivery at no extra charge. FedEx Home Delivery runs Saturdays as standard and Sundays in many areas. A holiday that lands on a Friday (Christmas Day and New Year’s Day both do in 2026) therefore often costs a residential parcel a single day, not a whole weekend. Commercial addresses are the exception: offices don’t get Saturday ground delivery unless the sender paid for it, so a parcel going to a workplace really does wait until Monday.

The UPS Holiday Schedule Questions Everyone Asks

Does UPS Deliver on Thanksgiving?

No. UPS makes no pickups and no deliveries on Thursday 26 November 2026. The only exception is UPS Express Critical, a premium emergency courier service that ordinary retail orders are never shipped on. Deliveries resume on Friday 27 November, and Saturday 28 November is a normal Saturday for ground residential parcels. FedEx is closed on Thanksgiving as well.

Is UPS Open on Veterans Day?

Yes. UPS operates full pickup and delivery on Wednesday 11 November 2026, and The UPS Store keeps normal hours. The one catch is UPS Ground Saver, which uses USPS for the final delivery; USPS observes the federal holiday, so Ground Saver parcels need one extra business day. FedEx also delivers on Veterans Day with minor pickup modifications.

What Are The UPS Store Hours on Holidays?

The UPS Store locations are individually owned franchises, so there is no single national holiday timetable. The UPS holiday schedule lists them as open on Veterans Day, the day after Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve, and as “limited locations” on Thanksgiving, Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. On the eves, most stores close early, so look up your specific store’s hours or ring ahead, especially on 24 and 31 December. FedEx Office follows a similar pattern: modified hours on each eve, closed on the holiday itself.

Is the FedEx Holiday Schedule 2026 the Same as the UPS One?

Mostly, with two differences that matter to shoppers. Both are closed on Thanksgiving, Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. But on New Year’s Eve, FedEx delivers everything while UPS delivers Air parcels only and parks Ground. And over weekends, FedEx Home Delivery runs on Sundays in many areas while UPS never does. FedEx also extends its overnight delivery promises by 90 minutes from 23 November to 4 January, so an early-morning FedEx delivery arriving mid-morning in that window is on time by the published peak rules.

Whatever the calendar does to your parcel, Parcel Monitor will show you where it stopped and the day it starts moving again.