Small Business Saturday, Black Friday, Cyber Monday 2026

Thanksgiving is three weeks out, and your small shop has a storefront, a web store or both to get ready. Small Business Saturday is a shopping day American Express started in 2010 to send people to independent stores, and it sits between Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Small Business Saturday, Black Friday, Cyber Monday: each pulls a different shopper, and you've got to plan stock, staff and emails for all of them.

First come the 2026 dates and where Small Business Saturday came from, then how big the Thanksgiving weekend is for sales. Next: a discount your margin can carry and a day-by-day plan for the long weekend. The US rules that apply during a sale follow, then whether Boxing Day is a holiday here, and what we'd do with four weeks left.

The 2026 dates, from Thanksgiving to Boxing Day

Every date in this weekend hangs on Thanksgiving, so that's where we started. Federal law sets it as "Thanksgiving Day, the fourth Thursday in November" in 5 U.S.C. 6103. The OPM 2026 federal holiday schedule lists "Thursday, November 26 Thanksgiving Day." Black Friday has no organizer and no official calendar. The NRF Winter Holiday FAQs put it inside "the five-day shopping period that begins on Thanksgiving Day and continues through the following Monday," which makes it Friday, November 27, 2026. Here's the full run, with the page each date comes from:

For the Saturday, go by the SBA. Its Small Business Saturday page says to "#ShopSmall on Saturday, November 28, 2026." The American Express Shop Small FAQ hadn't caught up when we checked on November 2, 2026, and still read "This year, Small Business Saturday is November 29, 2025." Its own rule puts the day on "the Saturday after Thanksgiving in the U.S.," which gives November 28 once you count. GivingTuesday's own site lists GivingTuesday on Dec 1, 2026, the Tuesday right after Cyber Monday.

Where Small Business Saturday came from

With that settled, it helps to know who's behind the Saturday in the middle. It's the only day of the five with a named founder. The SBA says the day "was founded by American Express in 2010 and officially cosponsored by SBA since 2011," so it's had a federal partner for most of its life. American Express tells it this way: "Amex created Small Business Saturday in 2010 to drive consumer spend at small businesses." The SBA asks shoppers to back "our nation's more than 36.2 million independent businesses."

You won't be the only shop on your street with a Shop Small sign, so give people a reason beyond the sign, like a gift-wrap table or a Saturday-only item.

How much does the day bring in? The only running total we found comes from American Express, and it's built from what shoppers told its surveys rather than from card or register data. Since 2010, Amex says, "consumers have reported spending an estimated $200 billion at small businesses on the day." We'd read that as reach, not as a forecast for your register.

The free kit is more useful. The SBA page offers "free Small Business Saturday marketing materials," and Amex's Shop Small marketing materials page has posters and social posts to download. Get them in the first half of November so they're up in the window and on your social accounts before the Thanksgiving weekend starts on November 26.

How big is the Thanksgiving weekend for sales?

That's the Saturday. The bigger question is how much money moves over the whole season, and the National Retail Federation puts a number on it. In its 2026 holiday forecast of October 15, 2026, NRF predicts November and December sales "will grow 4.2% over 2025." That's "total spending of $1.013 trillion," with the season counted as "Nov. 1 through Dec. 31." By comparison, NRF says "last year's holiday sales rose 3.1% over 2024 totaling $972 billion." NRF leaves out car dealers, gas stations and restaurants. It's a national figure, so it won't tell you what your shop will do, but it does say shoppers aren't planning to sit this season out.

Last year's weekend shows which days pulled people in. NRF's December 2, 2025 weekend count says 202.9 million people shopped from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday. Black Friday drew 80.3 million in-store and 85.7 million online shoppers. Saturday pulled 62.7 million in-store, and Cyber Monday drew 75.9 million online. If you've got a door, Friday and Saturday are where your best staff belongs, while a web-only store puts most of its effort into Friday and Monday.

This year's shoppers say they'll wait for it. NRF's October 20, 2026 holiday survey asked 8,094 adults about their plans. In it, 64% said they're likely to wait until Thanksgiving weekend for most of their shopping, while 43% of holiday shoppers planned to start browsing and buying before November. Online keeps growing too. The Census Bureau quarterly e-commerce report puts online sales at 17.1% of all retail in the second quarter of 2026.

The Census Bureau's third-quarter e-commerce figures come out November 19, 2026, a week before Thanksgiving, if you want a fresher number for your plan.

Pick a discount your margin can carry

Before you settle on 20% or 40% off, run the math on one product. We used example inputs that are made up: a $30 item that costs you $12. The sale price is the regular price times (1 minus the discount), and profit per unit is the sale price minus your cost. To match the gross profit of 100 full-price sales, you need 100 x ($30 - $12) / (sale price - $12) units, rounded up. Here's what our script got:

The pattern is harsh. At 30% off, profit per unit halves from $18 to $9, so you need 200 sales to earn what 100 earned at full price. At 60% off, this example item makes $0, since the zero line is 1 minus cost over price. A product with a thinner margin hits that wall much sooner, so run your own cost and price through the same formula before you print a sign. We'd discount gift sets and slow stock and keep best-sellers close to full price. Our ecommerce trends to add, test or skip in 2026 covers store changes that can earn more than a deeper cut.

What we tested

On November 2, 2026 we saved the official pages behind every date here and ran a small script over the copies. It worked out each 2026 date from the fourth-Thursday rule and found it on the pages: 10 of 10 checks, the Amex 2025 line included. It also built the margin table above and the planner page below, served on 127.0.0.1.

A day-by-day plan for the long weekend

Give each day one job. Here's the plan we'd hand a two-person shop:

1. Monday, November 23: set your holiday hours on Google, then email past buyers a first look at the Friday offer.
2. Thursday, November 26: post your hours and the Friday offer; if you're closed for Thanksgiving, say so.
3. Friday, November 27: open with one headline offer, online and in store, and check stock on your top three items every few hours.
4. Saturday, November 28: put your best staff here if you have a storefront, with Shop Small posters up and a gift-wrap table.
5. Sunday, November 29: restock, answer messages, and send one reminder email that names Monday's offer.
6. Monday, November 30: run an online-only code and post the last order date for gifts you can ship in time.
7. Tuesday, December 1: if you give part of sales to a cause, say how much and to whom.

A couple of those steps have rules behind them. Google's Business Profile help page on special hours names holidays as one reason to set them. It adds: "It's a good idea to confirm your hours for official holidays, even if they're the same as your regular hours." Thanksgiving is the one federal holiday in this window, so confirm your hours for it on Google even if you're keeping your normal hours that day.

Emails carry a rule too. The FTC CAN-SPAM compliance guide puts it in one line: "You must honor a recipient's opt-out request within 10 business days."

With four or five sends in one week, clean the list before each one so nobody who opted out on Monday hears from you on Friday. Our email campaign checklist has the full pre-send list. For wording, see our email marketing examples for small businesses.

Saturday is the day a local shop can win, so it's worth a little extra work. Post the Shop Small graphics where neighbors will see them. Our hyperlocal marketing playbook covers posts aimed at the few miles around you, and our walk-through of local SEO helps shoppers find your hours. Gifts bring returns, so write your return window down before Friday. Our Shopify customer service and returns setup walks through a returns page you can copy for any store.

US rules that apply during a sale

Three FTC rules touch this weekend: former prices, ship dates and review requests. What follows quotes them and isn't legal advice, so ask a lawyer about your own case.

First, the former price you show next to a sale price. The FTC's Guides Against Deceptive Pricing, 16 CFR 233 cover it. A former price is fair when it was "offered to the public on a regular basis for a reasonably substantial period of time." Their example is a seller who raises a $7.50 pen to $10 for a few days. Then the ad says "Were $10, Now Only $7.50!" and the guides call that "obviously a false claim." The FTC advertising FAQs for small business add that "The same standards for truthfulness apply" to sale claims.

Even a plain sale sign has a rule. When no amount is stated, "the advertiser must take care that the amount of reduction is not so insignificant as to be meaningless."

Second, the shipping promise. Under the Mail, Internet, or Telephone Order Merchandise Rule, 16 CFR 435, you need "a reasonable basis to expect" you'll ship on time. With no time stated, that means "within thirty (30) days." So a Black Friday order with no ship time stated reaches the 30-day mark on Sunday, December 27, 2026. It's 50 days when the buyer applies to you for credit to pay, which moves the same Black Friday order's line out to Saturday, January 16, 2027. If you can't make it, the FTC business guide to the rule spells out the next step: "you must seek the customer's consent to the delayed shipment."

Refunds after a cancel have a clock, too. Cash, check and third-party card payments go back "within seven working days."

The guide notes the rule "does not cover services," so it's about goods. It lists civil penalties "up to $53,088 per violation," and a vague ships-soon line isn't worth that.

Third, reviews. The FTC's reviews and testimonials rule, 16 CFR 465, bans fake reviews. Rewards are banned too when they hinge on reviews "expressing a particular sentiment, whether positive or negative." A coupon only for five-star reviews is out. The rule "went into effect on October 21, 2024."

Asking every buyer for an honest review is fine. A thank-you for posting one is where it gets tricky. The FTC Q&A on the rule answers that it "does not prohibit giving incentives for reviews," unless the review has to be positive or negative to earn it. The same answer warns that "failing to disclose incentives could be a violation of the FTC Act." Google is stricter: its Maps content policy bars merchants from offering incentives "in exchange for posting any review," so keep thank-yous away from Google reviews.

Our post on automating customer reviews safely goes further on how to ask.

State laws can add to all three rules. For contests, the FTC FAQs point you to "the Attorney General's Office in the state(s) in which you plan to advertise."

Is Boxing Day a holiday in the US?

No, Boxing Day isn't a US federal holiday, whatever the sale banners say.

The list of legal public holidays in 5 U.S.C. 6103 ends with Christmas Day, December 25. OPM's 2026 schedule stops at "Friday, December 25 Christmas Day," and our script found the word Boxing on neither page. So Saturday, December 26, 2026 is a normal business day for a US shop, and we'd use it for exchanges and gift cards rather than a big sale.

It matters if you sell to buyers in the UK or Canada. The GOV.UK bank holidays page shows "28 December Monday Boxing Day (substitute day)" for 2026, because the 26th is a Saturday. The Canada Revenue Agency holiday list gives Boxing Day as Saturday, December 26, 2026.

For a Boxing Day offer aimed at those buyers, use those dates rather than the US calendar. Say plainly in the ad that you ship from the US, so nobody expects a local delivery time.

What we'd do with four weeks left

If we ran a small shop this November, we'd keep it simple. This week, we'd pick one headline offer per day and run each through the margin math above. By Friday, November 13, we'd order stock for the top sellers and print the Shop Small posters. In the week of November 16, we'd write the five emails, schedule them, and set Google holiday hours for Thanksgiving Day and the whole long weekend. Before anything goes on a tag, we'd check every former price against our own sales records. A made-up former price is the easiest FTC problem to avoid. Then we'd print the planner table and tape it next to the register, so whoever's working knows the day's one job.

Don't try to win all five days. With a door, we'd pick Saturday; with a web store only, Monday. After Black Friday, those were the biggest days in NRF's 2025 count: 62.7 million in-store shoppers on Saturday and 75.9 million online on Cyber Monday. The other days get a reminder post and nothing more.

Small Business Saturday questions

How we made this guide: On November 2, 2026 a script saved the official pages cited here with plain requests. A second script checked every 2026 date against those copies and built the example margin table. Pages that refused the script aren't cited. Facts checked by the DigitalTreed team on November 2, 2026.

First published November 2023 with that year's dates and figures taken from news re-reports. Rewritten November 2, 2026 with 2026 dates from official pages, a day-by-day sale plan and the FTC rules that apply.

Sources

• OPM: Federal holidays, 2026 schedule
• 5 U.S.C. 6103, Holidays (govinfo, 2023 edition)
• SBA: Small Business Saturday
• American Express: Shop Small and Small Business Saturday
• American Express: Shop Small marketing materials
• NRF: Winter Holiday FAQs
• NRF: 2026 holiday sales forecast (October 15, 2026)
• NRF: 2026 holiday consumer survey (October 20, 2026)
• NRF: 2025 Thanksgiving weekend shoppers (December 2, 2025)
• US Census Bureau: Quarterly Retail E-Commerce Sales
• GivingTuesday.org
• GOV.UK: UK bank holidays
• Canada Revenue Agency: Public holidays
• 16 CFR Part 233, Guides Against Deceptive Pricing (eCFR)
• 16 CFR Part 435, Mail, Internet, or Telephone Order Merchandise (eCFR)
• 16 CFR Part 465, Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials (eCFR)
• FTC: Advertising FAQs, a guide for small business
• FTC: Business guide to the Mail, Internet, or Telephone Order Merchandise Rule
• FTC: Consumer Reviews and Testimonials Rule, questions and answers
• FTC: CAN-SPAM Act compliance guide for business
• Google Business Profile Help: Set special hours
• Google Maps Help: Prohibited and restricted content