Most New Zealand businesses shut for at least a week over Christmas and New Year. Your customers do not all know that, and the ones who ring during the break are often the ones with a problem that cannot wait. This guide gives the public holiday dates for the 2026/27 summer, the notice rule if you are closing the business down, and five ways to handle the phone while you are away.
Public holiday dates for Christmas and New Year 2026/27
These are the dates published by Employment New Zealand. Where a holiday falls on a weekend, it is observed on the following weekday for employees who would not otherwise work that day.
| Public holiday | Falls on | Observed |
|---|---|---|
| Christmas Day | Friday 25 December 2026 | Friday 25 December 2026 |
| Boxing Day | Saturday 26 December 2026 | Monday 28 December 2026 |
| New Year's Day | Friday 1 January 2027 | Friday 1 January 2027 |
| Day after New Year's Day | Saturday 2 January 2027 | Monday 4 January 2027 |
| Waitangi Day | Saturday 6 February 2027 | Monday 8 February 2027 |
So the 2026/27 break has four public holidays across two working weeks: Friday 25 and Monday 28 December, then Friday 1 and Monday 4 January. A business that closes from the afternoon of Thursday 24 December and reopens on Tuesday 5 January is shut for seven working days and uses four of them as public holidays.
Planning further ahead: in 2027, Christmas Day falls on a Saturday and is observed on Monday 27 December, and Boxing Day falls on a Sunday and is observed on Tuesday 28 December, according to the same Employment New Zealand page.
The closedown notice rule
If you close the whole business and want staff to take annual holidays during that time, Employment New Zealand's closedown guidance says an employer "can only have 1 annual closedown in any 12-month period and must give their employees 14 days' notice before it starts." Put the notice in writing, and if you are unsure how it interacts with staff who have no leave banked, read the full guidance or get advice. This article is about the phone, not employment law.
What happens to your phone when you are shut
Three things, usually:
- Callers do not know you are closed. Your Google listing may still show normal hours, your website may say nothing, and your voicemail greeting may be the one from March.
- The calls that come are skewed towards urgent ones. People with a leaking hot water cylinder on Boxing Day ring everyone. People wanting a quote in February wait.
- Whoever carries the phone gets no holiday. If that is you, the closedown is a closedown for everyone except you.
Five ways to handle calls over the break
1. Update everything that tells callers your hours
This is the minimum, and it costs nothing. Set holiday hours on your Google Business Profile, add a banner or a line to your website, and record a closedown voicemail greeting that states the reopening date. "Closed for the holidays" makes callers guess. "We reopen on Tuesday the 5th of January" lets them plan. Our phone greeting scripts include a closedown greeting you can adapt.
2. Divert to whoever is on call
If someone has to be reachable, divert the business number to their mobile for the break. On Spark and One NZ mobiles this is a short code; on 2degrees and on iPhones it is a settings screen. Our guide to diverting business calls in NZ has the codes. Remember to turn it off on reopening day.
The downside is the one above: the on-call person gets every call, including the ones that could have waited.
3. Use a human answering service for the break
Some answering services take short-term or seasonal cover. An operator answers in your name, follows a script, and passes urgent messages to your on-call number. Check in advance whether they cover public holidays and overnight, and what a busy fortnight will cost on a per-call or per-minute rate. See our comparison of after-hours call answering options for how this stacks up.
4. Push non-urgent callers to a form or email
If you genuinely cannot act on anything until you reopen, a voicemail greeting that sends people to a web form or email address keeps the requests in one place and stops the voicemail box filling up. It does nothing for the caller with the emergency, so pair it with option 2 or 5 if your work has emergencies.
5. Let an AI receptionist answer for the whole break
An AI receptionist answers every call in your business name, day or night, on public holidays included. Over a closedown it can:
- tell callers you are closed and exactly when you reopen;
- answer questions about your services, prices and service area from your knowledge base;
- book routine work into the first available slots after you reopen;
- take a full message with the caller's details, so you are not decoding voicemails on the 5th;
- transfer only the calls you have defined as urgent to the on-call mobile, with a short summary first;
- leave you a transcript and summary of every call.
The on-call person still exists for genuine emergencies, but they hear only about those. Everyone else gets a proper answer and a booking, and you come back to a list instead of a full voicemail box. KiwiAgent's Free plan includes 30 minutes of answering a month, and paid plans start at $49 a month in NZD; see the pricing page for what each includes. Our 24/7 call handling page shows how the hours rules work.
A closedown phone plan, with dates
- By late November: decide who, if anyone, is on call, and what counts as urgent enough to reach them. Write those rules down.
- By early December: if staff are taking annual holidays over a closedown, give the written notice at least 14 days before it starts.
- Two weeks out: set holiday hours on Google and your website. If you are using an answering service or an AI receptionist for the first time, get it set up and tested now, not on the 23rd.
- The day before you close: switch the closedown greeting or the divert on. Call your own number from another phone and listen to the whole thing.
- Reopening morning: switch the divert off, restore the normal greeting, reset your Google hours, and work through the messages and bookings.
If you charge public holiday rates
Many trades charge a higher callout rate on public holidays and after hours. If you do, make sure whatever answers your phone says so before the job is booked, whether that is your voicemail greeting, the answering service script, or the AI's knowledge base. A surprise surcharge on 28 December is the fastest way to turn a saved job into a one-star review.
Next step
If you would like your phone answered over the break without anyone carrying it, tell us about your business and we will set up a free pilot for you before the closedown. We onboard a limited number of businesses each month, so earlier is better than the week before Christmas.