Published
The short answer: for the student half of the year, Queen's and St. Lawrence College publish their term dates, so you can set your listing's switch dates from the calendar instead of guessing. For the summer visitor half, nobody I could find publishes a reliable date, so read it from your own Google Business Profile performance report. Then put the switch dates in your phone and make the edits ahead of the date, because Google reviews edits before they go live.
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This is the companion to what a Kingston shop's Google listing should say in September vs July, which covers what to change. This one covers when. A Business Profile is the free Google listing that shows your hours, photos and reviews on Maps and in search.
The dates you can look up
The Queen's University registrar publishes sessional dates for each faculty. I read the 2026-27 Faculty of Arts and Science sheet, and St. Lawrence College's academic calendar page. Both were checked on October 31, 2026. Other Queen's faculties run on their own sheets, so if your customers are mostly graduate students or in another faculty, open the matching sheet. St. Lawrence says on its own page that some programs follow a different calendar.
| Date | What the calendar says | Source | What a listing could do |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dec 8, 2026 | Queen's fall classes end | Queen's Arts and Science | Start the winter-break pattern |
| Dec 10 to 23, 2026 | Queen's fall exams | Queen's Arts and Science | Hold the pattern until exams end |
| Dec 18, 2026 | St. Lawrence fall semester ends | St. Lawrence College | St. Lawrence students finish before Queen's exams do |
| Jan 4, 2027 | Queen's winter classes begin | Queen's Arts and Science | Back to the term pattern |
| Feb 15 to 19, 2027 | Queen's winter reading break, includes Family Day | Queen's Arts and Science | Special hours for the week |
| Apr 5, 2027 | Queen's winter classes end | Queen's Arts and Science | Start the spring pattern |
| Apr 9 to 23, 2027 | Queen's winter exams | Queen's Arts and Science | Hold until exams end |
The fall reading break (October 12 to 16 this year, including Thanksgiving) and St. Lawrence's fall study week (October 26 to 30) have already passed, and the same two slots will appear on next year's sheets. Next fall's dates will be on the registrar's sheet for 2027-28, so re-read the sheet each year; this table runs out in April.
Which dates matter for you
Not every shop follows the students. A dentist or an accountant sees them in September and then goes on with the year. A coffee shop three streets from campus can see its whole week change. Ask which of your own regulars disappear when classes end, and use those dates only.
Ask which of your own regulars disappear when classes end, and use those dates only.
If you close for more than a week over the winter break, Google's page on closing a business says to use "Temporarily closed" for closures of more than 7 days, and warns that on broad searches temporarily closed businesses can rank after open ones. For a closure of 7 days or less it points you to special hours, and the special hours page allows up to 6 days in a row. Those two numbers don't match exactly, so keep short closures comfortably under both.
The dates nobody publishes
I looked for a dependable published start and end date for Kingston's summer visitor season and found none I could confirm, so this guide gives none. Your own report is better anyway, because it counts the people who found your listing.
Google's help page on performance describes the steps. Sign in to the Google Account that manages your profile, search for your business, select Performance, choose a time period at the top and apply it. On the Google Maps app, tap Business, then See more next to Performance. The report can show views, searches, directions, calls and website clicks, though Google says only the metrics that apply to your business appear. Two details from that page are worth knowing: views are counted as unique visitors and a person is counted once a day, and the searches metric is updated at the start of each month and can take up to 5 days to appear.
Here is how I'd read it:
- Choose the longest period Google lets you pick.
- Write down calls and direction requests for each month.
- Mark the two months when they climb and the two when they fall.
- Hold those against the term dates above.
- If a climb starts in the first week of September, students are a likely reason. If it starts in June, visitors are. That is my rule of thumb, not something Google's report says.
An illustration of the arithmetic, with made-up numbers: suppose a shop's report shows 40 direction requests in May and 60 in July. Sixty divided by forty is 1.5, so July runs half again as high as May. One year can't tell you whether that is the season or a one-off, so look for the same shape in a second year before you rebuild anything around it.
From dates to four reminders
The September vs July guide runs on two reminders, late June and late August. If your regulars follow the term calendar, the exam and break dates add two more, so pick the four switch points that fit your business and put each in your phone a week early. For a shop that follows the students, that might be late August, early December, early January and mid-April. For one that follows visitors, the dates come from your report. At each reminder, do one pass over your hours, special hours and description, as the earlier guide describes.
Google's edit page says it reviews your changes before updating them live, and its attributes page says a review can take up to 30 days. I found no stated timeline for hours changes on the pages I read, so I'd make them well before the new pattern starts, and attribute changes sooner. Check the listing once the date arrives.
When this isn't worth doing
If your business has one steady crowd all year, as a lawyer or a plumber might, a listing that never changes is fine and four reminders are four chores you don't need. If your report shows no visible rise or fall, don't invent a season. And if your address, phone or name read differently across the web, fix that first with why your business address needs to match everywhere, because an up-to-date calendar on a listing Google can't match to your business helps no one.
If you'd like help turning your report into a calendar, email hello@kingstonseo.com with your business name and the months your customers change, or call 613.480.1345. I'll write back with the dates I'd put in your phone. I work from Fort Erie, so I read your listing the way a stranger would.
Common questions
- Do these dates apply to Napanee?
- Not by themselves. The term dates describe the students in Kingston. A Napanee business should read its own performance report.
- Will changing my hours repeatedly hurt my ranking?
- Google's page on improving local ranking says businesses with complete and accurate information are more likely to show up. It says nothing about how often you may edit.
- Can I schedule my hours to change on a date?
- Special hours take dates you enter ahead. I found no way on Google's pages to schedule a change to regular hours in advance.
- Where is the Performance report on my phone?
- In the Google Maps app, tap Business at the bottom right, then See more next to Performance.
Sources
Checked against Google Business Profile help pages on 2026-10-31: Understand your Business Profile performance and insights, Mark your business as closed, How to set Special hours, Edit your Business Profile, Manage your business attributes, Tips to improve your local ranking on Google. Term dates checked on 2026-10-31: Queen's Faculty of Arts and Science sessional dates 2026-27 and St. Lawrence College academic calendar.