Business Days in Shipping: Meaning and How to Calculate

Business days establish delivery commitments. U.S. carriers are available Monday through Friday and not on weekends or holidays. Your countdown starts with the first acceptance scan. This article defines processing versus transit time, cut-off rules, and calculating deliveries.

What is “Business Days” in Shipping

What Do Business Days Mean

Monday to Friday, not including national holidays, is the definition of a standard business day. This is the foundation by which most businesses and shipping carriers operate.

Business Days vs Calendar Days

Calendar Days: All consecutive calendar days, including weekends and holidays, not leaving any dates out.

Shipping estimates, however, are almost always calculated using business days. For the same number, business days always take the same amount of time or longer than calendar days. For example:

• Calendar Days for a 5-Day Delivery: Monday to Friday.

• Business Days for a 5-Day Delivery: May take 7–8 calendar days if a weekend or a holiday falls within the period.

Key Factors That Affect Shipping Time

Besides Distance and Shipping Method, what else affects shipping time?

Carrier Cut-Off Times

One of the most important ones is the daily cut-off time by the carrier. That is the time a package must be brought to the carrier so it can be processed and shipped out the same day. If you bring in a package after the cut-off, it will not start its journey until the next business day. These cut-offs vary by carrier and region but are usually late afternoon.

U.S. Federal Holidays

The above holidays commonly halt business day counting for regular services. New Year's Day, Martin Luther King Jr Day, Presidents Day, Memorial Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day or Indigenous Peoples' Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas Day. Some carriers run limited services on holidays that fall on weekends. Always check for the most up-to-date service alerts.

Time Zones

Time also comes into play, since the shipping cut-off time is determined by the time zone of the seller. For example, an order at 3 PM for a buyer who is on the West Coast will be post-shipping deadlines for an East Coast seller who has 6 PM. In this case, the package will ship out the next business day.

Peak Season / Shopping Festival

Big holiday sales and shopping days like Black Friday or Cyber Monday are also significant. While technically business days, the sheer flood of order volume can lead to delays in processing for sellers and in network congestion among carriers. Shipments tend to be longer than initially anticipated during these high-volume times.

International Shipping and Customs

When shipping across borders, the holidays and weekends of the destination country also have an impact on delivery. Additional working days are involved in customs clearance, which are not always guaranteed. Provide a delivery window rather than an actual date for international orders and add brokerage information to reduce delays.

Unexpected Delays

Of course, delays can occur unexpectedly. Extreme weather conditions, calamities, or backlogs in operations can occasionally hold things up, but those are exceptions and not the norm.

How Carriers Count Business Days

USPS

UPS

FedEx

DHL eCommerce

Tips for Sellers & Shoppers

Tips for Sellers

• Show processing time and transit time separately on product pages and at checkout.

• Publish your daily cut-off time and specify the time zone.

• Use precise language around acceptance scans and label creation.

• The system needs to deliver time windows to customers because carrier delivery routes often change unpredictably.

• Your checkout system should include holiday calendars that automatically adjust delivery time estimates.

• Create a plan to handle late orders. The service needs to improve, or the shipment needs to be divided, when an expensive order exceeds the delivery deadline.

• Packaging material should deliver both optimal weight and solid protection for your products. Small, fragile products become eligible for dimensional weight reduction when you use padded bubble mailers. Lightweight polymailers serve as the best choice for shipping soft goods and apparel.

Tips for Shoppers

• The customer needs to verify whether the delivery promise displays the processing time or only the carrier transit duration.

• Search for the scheduled daily cut-off time. The system will process any orders made after this time on the following business day.

• Select the address type with care. P.O. Boxes remain undeliverable for certain services.

• The system should track the first acceptance scan. The carrier clock will start running when you see a label created update in the system.

• Evaluate weekend and holiday periods when selecting your service level to ensure optimal performance.

Conclusion

Understanding the concept of business days is essential for navigating the world of online shipping. To recap, business days are Monday through Friday, excluding public holidays. By keeping carrier cut-off times and federal holidays in mind, both sellers and shoppers can get a much clearer picture of when a package will arrive.

The sellers need to use protective bubble mailers and lightweight poly mailers for fast shipping and predictable delivery because these packaging methods protect the products. 

FAQs

Is Saturday ever a business day for shipping?

No. The USPS and FedEx provide Saturday delivery services, but Saturday does not count as a regular business day in transit time calculations. 

If I order something at 10 PM, does that day count?

No, it does not. The order was placed after business hours and well after any carrier cut-off times. The first business day for processing and shipping would be the following day.

How do time zones affect cut-off times?

International customers experience shipping delays because their orders must travel through various time zones when they purchase products from businesses operating in distinct parts of the nation. The cut-off time follows the local time of the warehouse or facility that handles the package shipment. 

Do international shipments follow the same business day rules?

Yes, but with an added layer of complexity. The delivery of international shipments depends on the holiday schedules and business operating hours of both the shipping origin and destination points, together with any customs processing times. 

Do weekends count as business days for shipping?

No. For most standard services, carriers count Monday through Friday. Some premium services include Saturday delivery in select areas.

Does printing a label start the delivery estimate?

No. The carrier starts the estimate by conducting its initial acceptance scan.

If I place an order right before the cut off will it ship the same day?

Yes, if the vendor can get it processed in time and deliver it to the carrier before the listed cut-off. Otherwise, it goes out on the next business day.

Why does my tracking show in transit with no updates for a day?

Line haul handoffs and processing center handoffs can take a full business day without a scan. That is okay if the package reappears at the following facility.

Are federal holidays always excluded from business day counts?

Yes for standard services. A few carriers have reduced operations on certain holidays, but they do not count towards the quoted business days.