What time does the LCBO close on Christmas Eve? 6 PM. Most locations shut at six on Thursday, December 24, 2026 — not nine, not eleven. The Beer Store closes at the same hour.
That single number is the one people get wrong every year, and they get it wrong in a specific way: they search "is the LCBO open on Christmas Eve," see yes, and relax. Yes is the correct answer and it is also a trap. December 24 isn't a closure day. It's an early-close day — and an early close is harder to plan around than a locked door, because nothing about the morning warns you.
Here's the full three-day stretch, what's open after six, and the one day in December that genuinely shuts everything.
The short answer
The LCBO is open on Christmas Eve. December 24 is not one of Ontario's mandated retail closure days. Doors open on a normal morning schedule.
It closes at 6 PM. Every LCBO outlet closes early on Christmas Eve. Six o'clock is the standard, and it holds across the province.
The Beer Store closes at 6 PM too. No later-closing backstop. Both chains go dark at the same moment on the 24th.
Christmas Day is the real closure. Friday, December 25 is one of the seven days the LCBO must close by law. Beer Store too. That one's total.
Boxing Day reopens, on reduced hours. Saturday, December 26 brings select stores back, most of them on a shortened schedule.
After 6 PM on the 24th you have five hours. Licensed corner stores sell until 11 PM, and licensed delivery runs to 11 PM. Those are the only two doors left.
December 24 is an hours question, not a closure question
Ontario's Retail Business Holidays Act names the days the LCBO must close. Christmas Eve isn't on the list — Christmas Day is. So every "is the LCBO open on Christmas Eve" guide answers yes, which is true, and then stops, which is the problem.
The useful question isn't whether. It's until when.
Think about how the 24th actually goes. You're cooking, or wrapping, or driving someone in from the airport. You register that the liquor store is open today, file it as solved, and get on with the day. At 7:30 PM someone asks what there is to drink, and you find out that the store closed ninety minutes ago — on a day you correctly believed it was open.
A full closure gets planned around. An early close gets discovered. That's the whole difference, and it's why December 24 generates more last-minute scrambling than December 25 does.
The three-day stretch: December 24, 25, 26
| Date | Day | LCBO | The Beer Store | Licensed corner store |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thu, Dec 24 | Christmas Eve | Open — closes 6 PM | Open — closes 6 PM | Open, sells until 11 PM |
| Fri, Dec 25 | Christmas Day | CLOSED | CLOSED | Most open, sells until 11 PM |
| Sat, Dec 26 | Boxing Day | Select stores, reduced hours | Select stores, modified hours | Open, sells until 11 PM |
Two things worth pulling out of that table.
The 24th and the 25th are not the same kind of day. On Christmas Eve both chains are open and both close at six. On Christmas Day both are shut from the start. If you're planning, treat the 24th as a short day and the 25th as a closed day — they fail differently.
The corner store column doesn't move. Licensed convenience and grocery retailers hold the same 7 AM to 11 PM alcohol window all seven days, holidays included, whenever the store is lawfully open. It's the most stable row on the page — and, as you'll see below, the most limited.
Why the 23rd matters more than you think
Here's the planning fact that does the most work: December 23 is the last full shopping day of the year.
Not the 24th. The 24th is a six-hour day dressed up as a normal one, and it's also the most crowded retail day of the LCBO's calendar — checkout lines running the length of the aisle, the good bottles picked over, parking lots full. Going on Christmas Eve means paying for that in time.
December 23, by contrast, is a store open its normal hours with a shelf that hasn't been stripped yet.
Buy on the 23rd. Then the 24th is a day you don't have to think about the liquor store at all, and the 25th — which is genuinely closed — is already handled.
If you're working out quantities, our party alcohol calculator does the bottle math by headcount. The short version for a holiday table: one more bottle of red than you think you need. Wine is where a Christmas dinner overruns, every time.
What's open after 6 PM on Christmas Eve
Six o'clock isn't the end of the night. It's the end of the retail night. Two things keep running to 11 PM.
Licensed convenience, grocery, and big-box
Since September 2024, licensed corner stores, grocers, and big-box retailers across Ontario sell beer, cider, wine, and ready-to-drink cocktails — from 7 AM to 11 PM, seven days a week. On Christmas Eve that's five more hours after the LCBO's doors lock.
Three limits decide whether that's useful to you:
- No spirits. Not at any hour, not at any store. Whisky, vodka, gin, rum, tequila — all of it is LCBO-only in Ontario. When the LCBO closes at 6 PM on the 24th, the province's entire retail spirits supply closes with it.
- 7.1% ABV ceiling on beer, cider, and RTDs. That rules out most double IPAs, imperial stouts, and the stronger canned cocktails.
- Wine caps at 18% ABV, which is generous enough that it rarely bites — but no container over 5 litres.
The full breakdown is in Can You Buy Alcohol at Convenience Stores in Ontario?.
Licensed delivery
Ontario permits licensed alcohol delivery from 9 AM to 11 PM, seven days a week — that's the AGCO's published window, it applies province-wide, and it applies on Christmas Eve exactly as it does on a Tuesday in March.
The difference from the corner store is what's on the menu: delivery carries spirits. That's the whole reason the 6 PM close matters less than it used to. From six until eleven on December 24, delivery is the only way to get a bottle of anything distilled.
Anyone who answers the door needs to be 19+ with government photo ID, holiday or not. And if a service tells you it can bring alcohol at 1 AM on Christmas morning, it is either not delivering alcohol or not operating legally — we wrote the honest version of that in How Late Can You Get Alcohol Delivered in Ontario.
Christmas Day: the one full blackout
Friday, December 25 is the day everything retail actually stops.
The LCBO is closed. Christmas Day is one of the seven statutory closure days, and there are no exceptions, no select locations, no reduced hours.
The Beer Store is closed. This is worth stating plainly, because the Beer Store does not close on every LCBO closure day — it opens a limited slate on Labour Day, for instance. Christmas Day isn't one of those. The whole chain is shut.
Licensed corner stores are the retail backstop, and it depends on the store. Whether a shop may open on a statutory holiday isn't decided by its liquor licence — it's decided by the Retail Business Holidays Act and municipal by-laws. Small shops under 2,400 square feet with three or fewer staff are exempt and generally do open. Full-size supermarkets are well over that threshold and generally don't, which takes the grocery wine aisle off the table for the day. When a store is lawfully open, the usual 7 AM–11 PM alcohol window applies.
Delivery runs 9 AM to 11 PM on Christmas Day. Same window as any other day of the year.
So the honest Christmas Day list: a corner store with no spirits and a 7.1% ceiling, or delivery. That's it. Every other door in the province is locked.
Boxing Day 2026 falls on a Saturday
This is the good news in the stretch. Saturday, December 26 means Boxing Day runs on weekend footing rather than a weekday skeleton crew.
LCBO: select stores open, most on reduced hours. The Beer Store: select locations reopen, some on modified hours — 11 AM to 5 PM is a common Boxing Day schedule — and others on normal operating hours.
"Select" and "reduced" are doing real work in both sentences. Boxing Day hours vary more store to store than any other day on this page, so check your specific location on the LCBO's store locator rather than assuming the one nearest you is among the open ones.
The Christmas Eve plan, in four lines
- Buy December 23. Full hours, unpicked shelves, no lineup. This is the move.
- If you're going on the 24th, go before 4 PM. The 6 PM close is a hard stop and the last two hours are the worst of the crowd.
- Buy spirits before six. Nothing after 6 PM on the 24th sells you a bottle of anything distilled except delivery.
- Buy one more red than the plan calls for. Christmas dinner runs long. The wine runs out first.
FAQ — Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day
What time does the LCBO close on Christmas Eve 2026? 6 PM. LCBO outlets close early on Thursday, December 24, 2026, with 6 PM the standard closing time across the province. Stores open on their normal morning schedule, so it's the closing hour that changes, not the opening one.
Is the LCBO open on Christmas Eve? Yes. December 24 is not a mandated closure day in Ontario, so the LCBO trades normally through the day — it simply stops at 6 PM instead of 9. Christmas Day is the closure; Christmas Eve is the early close.
What time does the Beer Store close on Christmas Eve? 6 PM, the same as the LCBO. All Beer Store locations close early on December 24, so there's no later-closing alternative once the LCBO shuts.
Is the LCBO open on Christmas Day? No. Every LCBO in Ontario is closed on Friday, December 25, 2026. It's one of seven statutory closure days under the Retail Business Holidays Act, with no select-store exceptions.
Is the Beer Store open on Christmas Day? No — the entire chain closes. Unlike Labour Day and Canada Day, when a limited slate of Beer Store locations opens, Christmas Day shuts every store in the province.
Where can I buy alcohol after 6 PM on Christmas Eve? Licensed convenience, grocery, and big-box stores until 11 PM, for beer, cider, wine, and RTDs — no spirits, and nothing above 7.1% ABV for beer, cider, and RTDs. Licensed delivery also runs to 11 PM and is the only option after six that carries spirits.
Can I get alcohol delivered on Christmas Day in Ontario? Yes — 9 AM to 11 PM. Ontario's licensed delivery window doesn't change for statutory holidays, so December 25 works the same as any other day. Whoever answers the door needs to be 19 or older with government photo ID.
Is the LCBO open on Boxing Day? Yes, select stores. Boxing Day is not a closure day. In 2026 it falls on Saturday, December 26, and most open locations run reduced hours — check the LCBO store locator for your specific branch.
Can I buy spirits anywhere after the LCBO closes on Christmas Eve? Only through licensed delivery. Spirits are LCBO-exclusive in Ontario — the Beer Store doesn't carry them and neither do licensed corner stores, at any hour. Once the LCBO closes at 6 PM on December 24, delivery is the sole remaining source until 11 PM.
What are the LCBO's New Year's Eve hours? Open, and some stores run extended hours on Thursday, December 31 — New Year's Eve is not an early-close day for the LCBO. The Beer Store is the one that closes at 6 PM on the 31st. New Year's Day, January 1, is a full closure for both. Every date is in our holiday hours calendar.
The one thing to take away
Christmas Eve is a six-hour day that looks like a normal one. That's the whole article. The LCBO being open on December 24 is true, widely reported, and the exact fact that leaves people standing at a locked door at 7 PM.
So move the deadline in your head. The liquor store's Christmas Eve isn't the 24th at all — it's December 23, which is the last day this year that every shelf in Ontario is open and stocked on normal hours.
And when the table runs longer than the bottles do, on the 24th, the 25th, or Boxing Day: we're open — order any time, delivery 9 AM to 11 PM, every day of the holidays. Call 416-627-7846.
