--- title: "Why do you show as closed when you're open? How to change your business hours on Google" description: "Your business shows as closed when it is open, or your Christmas hours are outdated. Where to change your hours on Google, your website and elsewhere." date: "2026-10-31" category: "Local SEO" keywords: "change business hours on Google, Christmas opening hours business, update Google Maps hours, Google special hours, opening hours on website" portada: "/portadas/portada-cambiar-horario-de-tu-negocio-en-google.webp" --- # Why do you show as closed when you're open? How to change your business hours on Google A customer looks at your Google listing at 19:40, sees "Closed" and rings the competition. You are inside, half-shuttered, serving someone. You have done nothing wrong: the hours Google has written down simply are not yours. It is one of the most expensive and easiest to fix mistakes in local marketing. And it multiplies at two moments of the year: when the clocks change and when the holidays arrive. Let's look at where your hours live, where to change them, and what almost everyone forgets. ## What wrong hours cost you Think about the three things a wrong schedule causes: - **The customer who rules you out.** Google's "Open now" is the first thing people read on their phone. If it says closed, half of them check nothing else: they look for the next business. - **The missed call.** Someone rings at 14:05 because your listing says you open at 14:00, and you find the phone ringing at 14:10 with nobody there. That person does not call again: they go back to Google. - **The AI assistant that describes you wrong.** More and more people ask ChatGPT or Gemini "which hairdresser is open today in my neighbourhood?". Those assistants read the same data as Google. If it is wrong, they rule you out without you ever knowing. None of the three shows up in your accounts, but all three are customers walking away. ## The four places where your hours live Here is the underlying problem: your hours are not in one place. They are in at least four: 1. **Your Google listing** (Maps and search results). 2. **Your website**, almost always on two or three different pages: home, contact and footer. 3. **Social media and directories**: Facebook, Instagram, Tripadvisor, Apple Maps, local guides, industry portals. 4. **Your phone and WhatsApp**: voicemail and automatic reply. The typical failure is not having one wrong: it is having three right and one wrong. The customer does not know which one is true, so they stick with the one that says "closed". ## How to change your hours on Google, step by step Open your listing from search (search your business and tap "Edit profile" or "Own this business?") or from business.google.com. You need the account you verified the business with; if somebody else created the listing, you will have to ask for access. **Regular hours:** 1. In the dashboard, find "Hours" and tap the edit pencil. 2. Adjust the opening and closing time for each day. 3. If you close at midday, use "Add hours" to create the second slot of the day. 4. Mark the days you close as "Closed". 5. Save and wait a few minutes: the change takes a while to show on Maps, sometimes an hour. **Special hours (holidays, long weekends, holidays away):** Do not change your regular hours to enter your Christmas schedule. Use "Special hours": they are specific dates that override the regular schedule and disappear on their own once they pass. If you close on 25 December, you mark it as a special hour for that day and your regular hours stay intact for the rest of the year. Two details almost nobody uses: - **Enter the exceptions two or three weeks in advance.** Google takes time to refresh and many people plan their Christmas shopping early. - **Check your listing from time to time.** Google lets users suggest changes to your hours, and sometimes they are accepted without telling you. If one day you show as closed on an ordinary Tuesday, look there first. ## The button you should never touch In the same menu you have the option to mark the business as "Permanently closed". That is for when you close for good, not for the August holidays. If you tap it, Google starts treating your listing as a business that no longer exists: it stops showing it in searches, it loses positions, and the reviews stay there, stranded. Getting it back afterwards is not tapping the opposite button: you have to request a review and wait. For holidays, always special hours. ## The hours on your website: the ones that almost never match Here is the most common mistake of all. The website was made three years ago with the hours of that time, and since the first change of season it stopped being true. The customer who arrives from Google sees two different pieces of data and loses trust: if the hours are wrong, what else is wrong? Three things you can check today: - **Search for your own hours on your website.** Open the home page, the contact page and the footer. If they do not match each other, you already have work to do. - **Take the hours out of hand-written text.** "Monday to Friday 9 to 14 and 17 to 20" inside a paragraph is data that ages badly. Better in a separate block, easy to find. - **Leave a single source of truth.** If your website has an admin panel, the hours should be edited once and update the home page, contact and footer at the same time. If it does not, every change is three edits and two guaranteed oversights. ## Christmas, long weekends and holidays: the ten-minute plan Before the holidays, make this list and work through it in one sitting: 1. Write the odd dates on a piece of paper: Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's Eve, New Year's Day, Epiphany, and the long weekends that affect you. 2. Mark which ones you open, which you close and which have reduced hours. 3. Enter them in Google as special hours. 4. Update the website and social media the same day, with the same wording. 5. Change the voicemail: "Until 7 January we are open 10 to 14. You can message us on WhatsApp". 6. Leave a sign on the door with the dates. It sounds old-fashioned, but the person walking past is a customer too. What cannot happen is your website saying "closed for holidays" while Google says you open at nine. That mismatch is noticed precisely in the week when the most people are searching. ## Final check If your Google listing and your website say the same thing, your phone does not promise hours you no longer keep, and your special hours are in place before the chaos starts, you are already ahead of most businesses in your city. It is ten minutes of work that pays for itself with one call that is not lost. At pedroaren.com we build websites with their own admin panel so you can change hours, prices and texts whenever you want, without calling anyone and without the footer being stuck with last year's schedule. You can [request a free design proposal](/solicita-web/en) and see how yours would look before deciding anything. To keep reading, you may be interested in [how to use your Google Business Profile listing](/blog/en/google-business-profile-guia) and [how to appear on the first page of Google in your city](/blog/en/como-aparecer-en-la-primera-pagina-de-google-en-tu-ciudad).