Harlow's Christmas market runs 12 to 21 December, four times last year's size and spreading past Broad Walk. The council's own Christmas page still shows 2025 dates.

Harlow’s Christmas market returns from Saturday 12 December to Monday 21 December 2026, and the council says it will be four times the size of last year’s. That is the one hard date published so far, and it comes from Harlow Council’s announcement of 16 August.

Before you plan anything around it, one warning. The council’s own Christmas page is still last year’s. Type harlow.gov.uk/christmas today and you are redirected to a Christmas Extravaganza page that says the market runs “from Saturday 13 December until 21 December” and that the lights “kicked off on Saturday 6 December”. Those are 2025 dates, in the past tense, sitting on a live council URL. The August press release is the current one.

There is no ambiguity about which year that page means. The council runs a second, separate Christmas Market listing in its events calendar, and that one prints the dates as data rather than prose: 13/12/2025 to 21/12/2025, 10:00 to 20:00, everyday. Both pages are live today.

What is confirmed for 2026

  • Dates: 12 to 21 December. Ten days, one day longer than 2025’s nine.
  • Four times the size of the 2025 market, which was Harlow’s first.
  • The footprint grows past Broad Walk. The council says it will stretch “across the whole of Broad Walk, into the transformed Market Square, and across East Gate and West Gate”.
  • Trader applications are open, at christmasinharlow.com. The council is asking for handmade crafts and gifts, decorations, artisan food and drink, baked goods, homeware, local artists and independent businesses, and hot food and drink vendors.

The council also says it has “some very exciting announcements up its sleeve” and that further details will come “nearer the time”. It has not said what those are.

What is not confirmed, and it is most of the practical detail

On last year’s timing those announcements are about a month away. The 2025 programme, switch-on date and market dates were all set out in a single release on 10 October 2025, delivered as a Love Actually style video by the council Leader. Expect the equivalent for 2026 in October.

There is no published 2026 information yet on any of the following:

  • opening hours. In 2025 the market ran 10am to 8pm daily. The council has not repeated that for 2026.
  • the Light Up date. See below. This is the one most people search for.
  • whether the workshops return, or their prices
  • whether the “immersive cabin” and its “famous faces” come back
  • the entertainment programme

If you need a placeholder, 2025’s shape is the only guide there is, and it is published in full on the council’s stale Christmas page.

The lights switch-on is called Light Up Broad Walk

If you are looking for Harlow’s Christmas lights switch-on, this is it. The council does not use that name. Its event is Light Up Broad Walk, it is free, and in 2025 it ran on Saturday 6 December, the weekend before the market opened.

Thousands turned out. The council’s account of the night describes local performers, interactive artists and the LED Sparks! drummers performing from the library down to the tree by the Obelisk, then the switch-on itself.

No 2026 date has been announced. On last year’s pattern it would fall on the Saturday before the market, which in 2026 is Saturday 5 December. That is our arithmetic from the council’s own 2025 sequence, not an announcement.

Harlow’s other switch-ons, because there is more than one

The town centre is not the only place with lights, and the neighbourhood events run on their own timetables.

In 2025 the council put Christmas trees in The Stow, Bush Fair, Old Harlow high street, Prentice Place and Churchgate Street, working with local traders and residents’ associations. They were installed on 27 November, except Old Harlow high street, which went up on 17 November.

Old Harlow runs its own high street lights through the Old Harlow Traders Association, funded by local fundraising, and holds a switch-on of its own in mid November. The Stow has held a Christmas tree light switch-on too, and the council’s own notice for the 2024 one shows the shape of it: Saturday 7 December, children’s crafts and a LiveWire performance from 4pm in the Safe To Go Stow Hub, lights on at 5.15pm, mince pies and non-alcoholic mulled wine, all of it following the Tommy Jones Project Christmas Extravaganza at Moot House from noon to 5pm. Neither has published a 2026 date.

Two pages that will mislead you

harlowtowncentre.co.uk has a page headed Christmas which opens “This year has been difficult for Harlow town centre” and explains that “with no Christmas lights switch on events or activities, this year we will be hosting a range of free virtual events”. That is a pandemic-era page from 2020 that has never been taken down, and the Internet Archive proves it: the page was captured on 17 December 2020 with that exact wording, and the December 2023 capture is word for word identical. It is not a statement about this year.

christmasinharlow.com is the council’s official Christmas site, and it is real, but it is built as a JavaScript app. Without JavaScript it renders one sentence: “Harlow’s festive season is back, bigger and better than ever - with a bigger Christmas market, better entertainment and festive celebrations across every part of town.” If a search result shows you that and nothing else, the site is not broken, it just has not loaded.

Parking, and the thing about Broad Walk

The market sits on the town centre’s main pedestrian spine, which means the Water Gardens and Harvey Centre car parks are the ones that fill. Both are private, both charge, and both give 15 minutes free.

Broad Walk itself has been through a long repaving programme, and the council’s whole Christmas pitch is built around showing off the finished surface. Expect the area around Market Square and the Obelisk to be busier than usual on market weekends.

Council car park tariffs, free hours and permit prices are on our parking in Harlow page, and anything live on the roads in is on Harlow roadworks and travel.

When to check back

Detail Status on 3 September 2026 Expected
Market dates Confirmed, 12 to 21 December Settled
Market opening hours Not published for 2026 October or November
Light Up Broad Walk date Not announced October or November
Workshops and entertainment Not published November
Neighbourhood trees and switch-ons Not announced Mid to late November

Every date and quotation above comes from Harlow Council’s own announcements and web pages, or from Your Harlow’s contemporaneous reports, all read on 3 September 2026. The two suggested dates, 5 December for Light Up and 10am to 8pm for opening hours, are labelled as inferences from last year, because the council has published neither.