Container terminals at the Port of Miami, Port Everglades and the Port of Palm Beach follow the federal and ILA holiday calendar. When a terminal is closed, nothing moves in or out, and the day before and the day after run heavier than normal. Here is the full 2026 terminal holiday calendar and what we do at MCT to keep your freight moving around each closure.
Most terminals at the Port of Miami, Port Everglades and the Port of Palm Beach have no weekend gates, so a Monday or Friday holiday is a three-day gap and a box inside the terminal on the last working day does not move until the next one. The exception is FIT at Port Everglades, which posts Saturday gates (typically 8:00 AM start, pickups to 2:00 PM) and some Sunday gates on its terminal hours page. SFCT at the Port of Miami runs 08:00 to 16:15 on normal days, with reefer pickup to 15:30, and POMTOC runs 08:00 to 16:15 first come, first served. The first day back after a holiday runs heavier than normal at every terminal.
Three things to check before any closure:
On most terminal holidays our trucks keep running and our warehouse is open, though hours vary by date, so confirm with us before each one. A container we pre-pull the day before sits on our chassis outside the terminal and delivers on the holiday to any receiver that is open, and freight already in our building ships out on schedule. Once the terminals close, a box still inside is not moving until they reopen, so the pre-pull has to happen before the last working day.
Two kinds of dates appear below. Federal holidays close terminals at all three ports. ILA holidays are observed by the ILA-staffed terminals at the Port of Miami (SFCT publishes them; POMTOC posts closures on its operations page) and vary at Port Everglades and the Port of Palm Beach, where some terminals ran regular hours on Good Friday this year. Most terminals have no weekend gates, so a Monday or Friday holiday is a three-day gap; FIT at Port Everglades posts Saturday and some Sunday gates, so check its hours page before a long weekend.
| Date | Holiday | Terminals | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thu, Jan 1 | New Year's Day | Closed, all ports | Federal holiday. |
| Mon, Jan 19 | Martin Luther King Jr. Day | Closed, all ports | Three-day gap. |
| Thu, Feb 12 | Lincoln's Birthday | Port of Miami closed; others vary | ILA holiday. |
| Mon, Feb 16 | Presidents' Day | Closed, all ports | Three-day gap. |
| Tue, Mar 17 | Teddy Gleason's Birthday | Port of Miami closed; others vary | ILA holiday. |
| Fri, Apr 3 | Good Friday | Port of Miami closed; others vary | ILA holiday. Port Everglades terminals ran regular hours in 2026. |
| Tue, May 5 | ILA Day | Port of Miami closed; others vary | ILA holiday. |
| Mon, May 25 | Memorial Day | Closed, all ports | Three-day gap. |
| Fri, Jun 19 | Juneteenth | Varies by terminal | Federal holiday, not on the SFCT list. Confirm each year. |
| Fri, Jul 3 | Independence Day (observed) | Closed, all ports | July 4 fell on a Saturday. Three-day gap. |
| Mon, Sep 7 | Labor Day | Closed, all ports | Three-day gap. |
| Mon, Oct 12 | Columbus Day | Closed, all ports | Three-day gap. Heavy Tuesday at the terminals. |
| Wed, Nov 11 | Veterans Day | Closed, all ports | Midweek closure. Split the week's volume across Tuesday and Thursday. |
| Thu, Nov 26 | Thanksgiving | Closed, all ports | Expect limited or no terminal operations Friday, November 27. Confirm with your terminal the week before. |
| Thu, Dec 24 | Christmas Eve | Closed or early close | SFCT lists it as a holiday; other terminals close midday. Treat it as a lost day. |
| Fri, Dec 25 | Christmas Day | Closed, all ports | Three-day gap into the weekend. Clear LFDs by Wednesday, December 23. |
| Thu, Dec 31 | New Year's Eve | Closed or early close | Same as Christmas Eve, then closed Friday, January 1, 2027 and the weekend. Four-day gap. |
| Fri, Jan 1, 2027 | New Year's Day | Closed, all ports | Terminals reopen Monday, January 4. |
Sources: SFCT (APM Terminals Miami) published holiday list and hours; POMTOC operations updates; Port Everglades terminal operator notices. Terminals observe holidays proclaimed by federal authority, the State of Florida, or the ILA, and when a holiday falls on a Sunday the following Monday is observed. Early-close days and the Friday after Thanksgiving vary by terminal and year, so we confirm each one with POMTOC, SFCT, the Port Everglades terminals and the Port of Palm Beach the week prior and post updates here.
A terminal holiday does not pause demurrage or per diem by default. A box that lands on its Last Free Day the Friday before a Monday holiday has effectively zero slack: miss Friday and you are paying storage Tuesday. Chassis per diem keeps running every calendar day the chassis is out, holiday or not.
The fix is to pull early. We pull the container before the holiday and either deliver it straight to your consignee on the holiday itself, or stage it at our Fort Lauderdale building, 12 miles from Port Everglades and 28 from the Port of Miami, and transload it to a domestic trailer so it is already moving when the terminals reopen. Storage in our yard is a fraction of terminal demurrage.
Send us the container number and Last Free Day and we will tell you the same day whether we can get it out before the terminals close.