The 140th Canton Fair runs in three phases between 15 October and 4 November 2026 at the China Import and Export Fair Complex in Pazhou, Guangzhou: Phase 1 from 15 to 19 October, Phase 2 from 23 to 27 October, and Phase 3 from 31 October to 4 November. Between them sit two changeover windows — 20 to 22 October and 28 to 30 October — when the halls are closed while booths are torn down and rebuilt. The single most expensive mistake a buyer makes is flying in for the wrong phase: the product you source decides your dates, and the hall layout decides your walking route. This guide maps both.
The three phases at a glance
Each phase is a separate trade show sharing one venue. Exhibitors reset completely between phases, so a Phase 1 badge scan tells you nothing about who is on the floor in Phase 3. Plan your trip around the phase that carries your category, and only add a second phase if your bill of materials genuinely spans two.
| Phase | Dates (2026 autumn) | On the floor | Who should be there |
|---|---|---|---|
| Phase 1 | 15–19 October | Electronics & home appliances, lighting, vehicles & parts, machinery, hardware & tools, energy & new-energy products | Engineering-led buyers, industrial purchasers, lighting and e-commerce hardware importers |
| Phase 2 | 23–27 October | Furniture, building & decorative materials, sanitary & bathroom equipment, ceramics, household items, kitchenware & tableware, home decorations, festival products, gifts & premiums, glass artware, garden products | Retail and hospitality buyers, interior and construction specifiers, gift and homeware importers |
| Phase 3 | 31 October–4 November | Textiles & garments, shoes, office supplies, bags & cases, toys, baby products, pet supplies, food, medicine & health products, personal care, sports & travel goods | Fashion and soft-goods buyers, toy and baby-goods retailers, food and health importers |
Phase 1 (15–19 October): electronics, machinery, lighting, hardware
Phase 1 is the engineering phase. The floor splits roughly by area: Area A carries consumer electronics and information products plus household electrical appliances; Area B holds hardware and vehicles & parts; Area C covers lighting equipment and motorcycles; Area D — the newest halls of the complex — concentrates machinery, robots and intelligent manufacturing. If you source anything with a power cord, a motor or a PCB, this is your week.
Two practical notes. First, lighting buyers belong here even though lamps feel like "home goods": Phase 2's household zone is tableware and storage, not luminaires. Second, Phase 1 exhibitors talk in specifications — bring drawings, target certifications (CE, UL, FCC as relevant) and a realistic annual volume, because a machinery booth will quote differently at 500 units than at 5,000.
Phase 2 (23–27 October): furniture, building materials, homeware, gifts
Phase 2 is the widest phase for general retail buyers. By area: Area A carries ceramics and garden products; Area B holds furniture and sanitary & bathroom equipment; Area C covers glass artware and household items including kitchenware and tableware; Area D concentrates home decorations, festival products and gifts & premiums. Building and decorative materials also sit in this phase, which makes it the right week for hotel, restaurant and property fit-out purchasing.
Furniture deserves special handling: booth pieces are display builds, so ask for the production catalogue and container-mix options rather than pricing the showroom item. For gifts and festival products, lead times are seasonal — a Christmas item confirmed in early November still makes a spring sailing, but the same item confirmed in January does not.
Phase 3 (31 October–4 November): textiles, apparel, toys, food
Phase 3 is the soft-goods and lifestyle phase. Area A carries garments and shoes; Area B holds personal care, medicine & health products and food; Area C covers raw textiles and fabrics; Area D concentrates toys, baby products and bags & cases. Fashion buyers should arrive on day one: fabric mills and garment factories show their spring/summer developments early in the phase, and popular mills' sample rooms book out by day three.
Food and health-product buyers face an extra layer: registration and label compliance in the destination market, not just factory capability. Ask for the export licence scope and existing registrations for your market before discussing recipes or flavours.
Reading hall numbers and planning your walking route
Every booth address is a area-plus-hall code, for example "Area B, Hall 10.2, Booth F24": the first number is the hall, the digit after the dot is the floor. Before you fly, pull your target exhibitors from the official exhibitor list, group them by area and floor, and schedule one area per half-day. The complex is enormous — a realistic day covers one area thoroughly or two superficially, and 20,000 steps is a conservative estimate.
Getting there: Metro Line 8 serves the complex directly. Xingangdong Station Exit A feeds Areas A and D; Pazhou Station Exits A and B feed Areas B and C. Taxis and ride-hailing drop at the area gates, but on peak days the metro is faster than any road approach across Pazhou island.
The changeover days you must not fly into
On 20–22 October and 28–30 October the halls are closed for dismantling and setup. There is nothing to see, hotels price oddly, and exhibitors are in transit between builds. If your itinerary spans two phases, use the changeover for factory visits in the Pearl River Delta — most Phase 1 and Phase 2 exhibitors manufacture within two hours of Guangzhou — or for sample review and quote comparison in your hotel's business centre.
A three-day pattern that works in any phase
- Day 1 — scan. Walk your target area end to end without stopping to negotiate. Photograph booth cards, collect catalogue QR codes, and mark ten to fifteen candidates.
- Day 2 — shortlist. Revisit the candidates with real questions: MOQ, tooling, certification ownership, lead time, payment terms. Take notes in one spreadsheet row per supplier, not in scattered notebooks.
- Day 3 — commit to next steps. Request samples from the top three to five, agree sample costs and courier accounts, exchange WeChat, and book any factory visit before you leave Guangzhou.
That rhythm beats five days of random walking because the fair rewards comparison: a price only means something once you have three of them. For how to turn those three quotes into a negotiation, see our guides to MOQ negotiation with Chinese factories and reading a China factory quote line by line.
After the fair: where the real sourcing starts
A booth is a marketing surface, not a capability audit. The buyers who convert Canton Fair contacts into reliable supply chains verify before deposit: business licence and export scope, certification ownership, production lines running your category, and a factory visit or third-party audit where the order size justifies it. ChinaMakersHub's own verification process follows exactly this sequence for every manufacturer on the platform, and our Greater Bay Area manufacturing guide maps which categories cluster where when you plan post-fair factory visits.