How to add your business hours to Google, holidays included

What a customer sees when your listing has no hours

Most Google listings in BDRI’s readings already show their hours. As of 19 September 2026, 407 of the 1,571 Google listings whose details BDRI read showed no opening hours, so about three in four had them. A listing with no hours may belong to a business that keeps regular hours and posts them on the door. The listing just gives Google nothing to show. If your BDRI reading says “No hours on the listing”, this guide is the fix.

We searched Google Maps for mechanics in Nassau on 25 September 2026. Listings with hours showed a line under the name, such as “Closed · Opens 8 AM” or “Open 24 hours”. The listing without hours showed its category, address and phone number, and nothing about whether it was open.

Maps also lets a customer filter for places open at a set time. With the Hours filter set to Friday at 6 p.m., the first 43 results all showed hours. The listings without hours came after them, including one that had been near the top before the filter.

Google’s own help makes the same point for a salon. It says a salon “might appear in local search results for people who search for ‘salons near me’ or ‘salons open now’ because you’ve provided information that includes your address and hours.”

Hours on your listing tell a customer, before they set out, whether your door is open.

How to add your business hours to Google

These are Google’s steps as of September 2026. If a button has moved since, look for the hours section of your profile.

1. Sign in to the Google account that manages your listing, and go to your Business Profile.
2. Select Edit profile, then Hours.
3. Under Business hours, next to Hours, select Edit.
4. Choose Open with main hours. If the setting shows Open with no main hours, Google shows no hours at all, and that may be why your listing has none.
5. Tick each day you open, and set the opening and closing times.
6. Select Save.

Google may review an edit before it goes live. Once the change is live, your profile shows a message confirming it, and on phones Google adds a post about it to your profile’s Updates tab, which you can edit or delete.

These steps need the Google account that manages the listing. If nobody at the business has that access yet, you’ll need to claim the listing first. The full guide to your Google Business Profile, linked at the end of this article, walks through claiming. You can still edit the hours while Google is verifying you.

Lunch breaks, 24-hour days and seasonal hours

• A lunch break. Select Add hours on that day and enter two sets of times, one before the break and one after.
• Open all day and night. For each day it applies to, open the Opens at list and choose 24 hours.
• Seasonal hours. Google’s guidelines say a business with seasonal hours can use its current season’s hours as its regular hours. A tour operator that runs only in the winter tourist season can list its season’s hours as its regular hours. When the season ends, Google says you can mark the business Temporarily closed, then set the regular hours again when it reopens.

Google asks for your customer-facing hours: the times customers can come in or reach you. List those, and leave out the hours staff work before opening.

Holiday hours for Bahamian public holidays

Special hours are for days that differ from your regular week, such as a public holiday, an event or a closure. Google’s steps:

1. Select Edit profile, then Hours.
2. Next to Special hours, select Edit.
3. For a date Google suggests, select Review. For any other date, select Add a date.
4. If you are closed that day, make sure Closed is ticked. If you are open, untick Closed and enter your hours.
5. Select Save.

Special hours only show when your regular hours are set with Open with main hours, so set those first.

Google suggests holiday dates for The Bahamas. For most public holidays, its date matches the Cabinet Office’s. In 2026, Boxing Day doesn’t. It falls on Saturday 26 December, the public holiday is observed on Monday 28 December, and Google suggests the Saturday.

The 2026 dates are from the Cabinet Office’s notice of 5 January 2026. We found no 2027 list from the Cabinet Office as of 25 September 2026, so the January dates are Google’s. Where Google’s holiday list differs from the Cabinet Office’s dates, the Cabinet Office’s date is the public holiday.

Set each date even if you keep your usual hours. On the holidays Google lists, it says “a warning may appear on your Business Profile that tells users your business hours might differ”. Setting the day ahead lets customers see your holiday hours.

When you close without warning

Not every closure is planned. In August 2026, The Nassau Guardian reported a power cut in Downtown Nassau that closed many businesses early one afternoon and kept them closed into the next day.

For a day like that, add the date under Special hours and tick Closed. Special hours cover up to six days in a row. For a closure of a week or more, or one with no end date yet, Google says to mark the business Temporarily closed instead. Change it back when you reopen. If Google adds a post about the change to your Updates tab, you can edit it to say why you closed and when you expect to open again.

If someone else changes your hours

You aren’t the only source Google uses for your hours. Google fills in listings from the business’s own website, from people’s suggested edits and from its own contact with the business.

• Your website. Google reads it. If your website shows different hours from your listing, change the one that is wrong so they match.
• Suggested edits. People using Google Search or Maps can suggest new hours for a place. When a suggested edit needs your review, Google may tell you by email or on your profile, and you have 4 days to accept or reject it. After that, Google may publish it if other public information, such as your website, supports it. Some edits are applied without asking you.
• Calls and messages from Google. Google may call, text or send a WhatsApp message to your listing’s number to confirm details such as your hours, and add the answers to your profile. If your listing is verified, you can switch these off in your Business Profile settings, under Advanced settings.

When Google tells you about a change, by email or on your profile, open your listing and check the hours.

Google is testing hours written in a sentence

Search Engine Roundtable reported on 24 September 2026 that Google is testing a tool called “Set your hours automatically”. The owner types the hours as a sentence, such as “Monday to Friday 8 to 5, Saturday 9 to 1”, and Google fills in each day. It was spotted in a screenshot one person shared, and it may not reach every profile. If it appears on your profile, check every day it fills in and correct any it gets wrong.

When a listing should not show hours

Google’s guidelines say some businesses should leave hours off their listing:

• businesses that run to a schedule that changes, such as cinema showtimes, worship services and classes
• businesses that see people by appointment only
• hotels and other places to stay, schools, event venues, and transport services such as airports

Some of the listings without hours in BDRI’s readings may be businesses like these, doing what Google asks. Every other business can follow the steps above.