Christmas Day and New Year's Day 2026 both fall on a Friday, a Harrogate collection day. What changed last year, tip closures and when new dates land.
North Yorkshire Council has not yet published its 2026 Christmas bin dates. What we can say now is that two Friday collections in the Harrogate area will have to move, because Christmas Day and New Year’s Day both fall on a Friday this year.
Since 21 April 2025 every rubbish and recycling round in the Harrogate area has run Tuesday to Friday, according to the council’s news release on the change. That keeps Monday bank holidays clear. It does not help when the holiday lands on a Friday.
The quick answer
Christmas Day is Friday 25 December 2026 and New Year’s Day is Friday 1 January 2027, and both are normal collection days in the Harrogate area. Last year the council gave no street-by-street table for household bins: it told residents to check the online bin collection calendar, which carries the revised dates for each address. The tips close on Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day, and on every Wednesday as usual.
The 2026 calendar, and why Fridays are the problem
| Date | Day | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| 25 December 2026 | Friday | Christmas Day, a Harrogate-area collection day |
| 26 December 2026 | Saturday | Boxing Day |
| 28 December 2026 | Monday | Substitute bank holiday for Boxing Day |
| 1 January 2027 | Friday | New Year’s Day, a Harrogate-area collection day |
National Rail’s Christmas travel summary confirms the Boxing Day bank holiday moves to Monday 28 December this year. Because Harrogate rounds never run on a Monday, that substitute day should not disturb your bins. The two Fridays will.
We are not going to guess where the Friday collections go. The council decides that, and in past years it has moved some collections earlier and some later, including onto a Saturday.
What the council did last Christmas
For Christmas 2025 the council’s Christmas and New Year services page said only that there were “some changes to our waste and recycling collections over the Christmas and New Year holidays”, asked residents to have bins out by 6am, and pointed to the bin calendar for details. It published full revised tables for commercial customers only. (The live page now returns an access-denied error between seasons, so the link above is the archived copy.)
The year before, under the old Monday to Friday rounds, it did publish a Harrogate table. The December 2024 version moved Christmas Day collections to Friday 27 December, Boxing Day collections to Saturday 28 December, and Friday 27 December collections to Monday 30 December, with the knock-on running into the New Year. The rounds have changed since, so none of those dates carry over. What carries over is the habit: expect Saturday working, and expect the knock-on to run into the first week of January.
Businesses: last year’s Harrogate commercial table
If you pay for a North Yorkshire commercial waste collection, the 2025 Harrogate-area changes were the clearest guide to how the council handles a holiday:
- Monday 22 December collections were brought forward to Saturday 20 December
- Tuesday 23 moved to Monday 22, Wednesday 24 to Tuesday 23, and Christmas Day to Wednesday 24 December
- Boxing Day collections moved to Saturday 27 December
- New Year’s Day moved to Friday 2 January, and Friday 2 January to Saturday 3 January
That is from the same archived council page. The 2026 table has not been published.
The tips over Christmas
The three household waste recycling centres serving the Harrogate area are Harrogate on Wetherby Road (HG3 1DE), West Harrogate on Penny Pot Lane (HG3 2SN) and Ripon on Dallamires Lane (HG4 1TT). All three keep the same rules:
- Open 8.30am to 4pm from October to March.
- Closed every Wednesday, and on Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day.
- You must register your vehicle first. Registration became compulsory on 27 April 2026.
Put those rules on to this year’s calendar and the fortnight looks like this:
| Date | Tips |
|---|---|
| Wednesday 23 December | Closed (Wednesday) |
| Thursday 24 December | Open, 8.30am to 4pm |
| Friday 25 December | Closed (Christmas Day) |
| Saturday 26 December | Closed (Boxing Day) |
| Sunday 27 December | Open, 8.30am to 4pm |
| Monday 28 December | Not stated by the council (substitute bank holiday) |
| Wednesday 30 December | Closed (Wednesday) |
| Friday 1 January | Closed (New Year’s Day) |
The council’s pages name the three holidays, not the substitute Monday, so check before a Monday 28 December tip run.
There is no fixed tip at Knaresborough, Boroughbridge or Pateley Bridge. The council’s mobile recycling centre makes its last pre-Christmas stops at Pateley Bridge (Bewerley Park) on Saturday 5 December and Boroughbridge (Back Lane car park) on Saturday 12 December, both 9am to 1pm.
Christmas trees
The council takes Christmas trees free at every household waste recycling centre, according to its Christmas trees page:
- Real trees go in the garden waste skip. They are shredded and composted.
- Artificial trees go in the reuse container if still in good condition, the small electrical cage if they light up, the scrap metal skip if made of metal, or the waste-for-energy skip otherwise.
If you pay for garden waste collection, you can chop the tree up and put it in your garden waste bin, but it will not be emptied until March, when the service restarts. There is no winter garden waste round.
Still to be confirmed
- The 2026 revised collection dates for Harrogate, Knaresborough, Ripon and the villages. We will add them here as soon as the council publishes them, and at the latest by early December.
- Whether the tips open on Monday 28 December.
More local information: Harrogate bin collection days for the everyday rules, parking in Harrogate, roadworks and travel, Christmas trains from Harrogate and school term dates.
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