TL;DR

  • Singles Day is 11 November, and in 2026 that is a Wednesday.
  • It started in 1993 as a joke between students at Nanjing University who wanted a date for people without a relationship. In Chinese it is Guanggun Jie.
  • The date is the whole idea: 11.11, four ones standing next to each other, four people standing alone.
  • Alibaba turned it into a shopping festival in 2009. It is now the largest single shopping day in the world, bigger than Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined.
  • It reached the Netherlands around 2017 with the Chinese marketplaces and now functions as the opening bell of the sale season.
  • In 2026 Singles Day also falls on Sint Maarten, so expect children with lanterns at the door the same evening. Two entirely unrelated things on one date.

In this article

Man alone on Singles Day wearing a Last Bucks off-white tee
11.11. Four ones, standing on their own.

Singles Day falls on 11 November and in 2026 that is a Wednesday. It started in 1993 as a joke between students at Nanjing University who wanted a day for being single, and was turned into a shopping festival by Alibaba in 2009. It is now the largest single shopping day in the world, bigger than Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined.

Most people in the Netherlands met Singles Day as a banner. It arrived around 2017 with the Chinese marketplaces, spread to Dutch webshops within two seasons, and now functions as the starting gun for six weeks of discounting.

The origin is better than the banner. It is worth five minutes.

What is Singles Day?

Singles Day is 11 November, written 11.11. The date is the point of the whole thing: four ones standing next to each other, four people standing alone. In Chinese it is Guanggun Jie, which translates roughly as Bare Sticks Festival, and the bare sticks are the ones in the date.

In 2026, Singles Day falls on Wednesday 11 November 2026. In the Netherlands that is also Sint Maarten, which means children with lanterns at your door in the evening. Two entirely unrelated traditions on the same date, and only one of them ends with a parcel.

Where did Singles Day come from?

From students, in 1993, at Nanjing University.

The story is that a group of male students, tired of a calendar full of days for couples, decided that 11 November belonged to people who were single. Not as a complaint. As a counter-celebration: dinner, a night out, and an explicit refusal to treat being on your own as a problem waiting to be solved. That origin spread from one campus across Chinese universities through the nineties.

Graphic of 11.11, the four ones behind Singles Day
Four ones. That is the whole origin of the date.

It stayed a student thing for sixteen years. Then in 2009, Alibaba picked the date for a one-day online sale on Tmall with a couple of dozen merchants taking part. It worked. It kept working. Within a decade 11.11 had grown past every Western shopping day, and it now moves more money in twenty-four hours than Black Friday and Cyber Monday do together.

So a day invented by people celebrating not being paired off became the largest commercial event on the planet. That is either very funny or slightly bleak, depending on the week you are having.

When is Singles Day 2026?

Singles Day 2026 falls on Wednesday 11 November. The date never moves, because the whole day is built on the four ones of 11.11. Students in Nanjing picked it in 1993 as a day for single people in China, sixteen years before Alibaba turned it into a shopping day.

Black Friday always comes later in November, on the Friday after American Thanksgiving. In 2026 that is Friday 27 November, sixteen days later. Thanksgiving moves every year, the eleventh does not. So 11.11 opens a run that closes on 5 December:

That sequence matters if you are planning. Singles Day is early, which means full stock and full size ranges, and it is smaller, which means fewer people are looking at the same shirt you are.

World Singles Day and International Singles Day

World Singles Day and International Singles Day are other names under which people search for the same 11.11, which in 2026 falls on Wednesday 11 November. In Chinese it remains Guanggun Jie, and on a webshop banner it is often just the four ones.

What happens in a Singles Day sale?

A Singles Day sale is a discount that webshops run on or around 11 November, and in the Netherlands the 11.11 sale has become the opening of a season that runs through Black Friday and Cyber Monday to Sinterklaas.

How long the sale runs and what it covers differ per shop: one day or a whole week, the full range or a selection. The number worth checking is the reference price, the price a discount is calculated from, because a percentage only means something against what the item actually sold for before.

At Last Bucks there is no separate shop for the day. What we reduce for 11.11 sits on the same sale page as the rest of the year.

Is Singles Day worth buying in, or should you wait for Black Friday?

Honest answer: it depends on which risk you mind more.

  • Buy on 11.11 if you care about size and colour. This is the day the full range is still there. On 27 November it will not be. Jet black in M goes first, every year, at every brand.
  • Wait for 27 November if you care about the deepest number. Black Friday discounts usually go further because more brands are competing on the same day, and stock that did not move on 11.11 gets pushed harder.
  • Do not buy twice. The most expensive mistake in this six-week window is buying something on Singles Day, seeing it cheaper on Black Friday, and buying a second thing to make up for it.

There is no rule that a brand’s Singles Day price will be beaten later. Some brands run one price for the whole season. Ours sits on the sale page, and it is the same page in November as it is in June.

Free size advice before 11.11

Our tees are semi-oversized: in your own size they fit like a regular tee with slightly longer, roomier sleeves, and one size up gives you an oversized fit. Send your height, weight and fit preference, regular or oversized, to info@last-bucks.com or use our contact form for personal size advice on our tees, sweaters and zip hoodies.

Our tees for 11.11

What Last Bucks does with 11.11

We take part, and we do not dress it up as something else. There is no Last Bucks Singles Day philosophy, no campaign about self-love with a discount code attached.

What we will say is that a day invented by people who refused to treat being on their own as a failure sits closer to this brand than most of the calendar does. Last Bucks was started by one man putting his last savings into it after walking away from a life that looked correct from the outside. That story is on the about page, and it is not a marketing angle, it is just what happened.

What is reduced is on the sale page. What is new is on new arrivals. The newsletter gets it first, and the sign-up is at the bottom of every page. Order before 22:30 on a working day and it arrives the next working day, with free shipping over 50 euros.

Three prints for a day about going your own way

The Uncaged Birds Tee in Off-White. Birds that are not in a cage, which sounds obvious until you have been in one. It connects directly to the founding story, where the cage was gilded: a stable life that looked like success from the outside and did not feel like one from the inside.

The In Balance Tee in Jet Black. The first tee we ever made. Lady Justice without her blindfold on the back, and the word balance with a line struck through it. Everything is supposed to add up. An actual life does not, and being out of balance for a while is not a failure.

The Own The Sky Tee in White. The sky is the limit, and then past it. It is the most straightforwardly optimistic print in the collection, and the only one that does not have an argument buried in it.

Three Last Bucks tees in the Singles Day selection
Three prints about going your own way.

All three are 250 gram organic cotton and semi-oversized: a regular fit with slightly longer, roomier sleeves in your own size, oversized one size up. Every product page has a full size guide, and the rest of the tees are there too.

For the colder half of November, our sweaters are 440 gram cotton in a regular fit, and the zip hoodie is 440 gram as well, cut oversized with dropped shoulders and a slightly cropped length.

Sweaters for when November turns cold

What to do with the eleventh if you are not buying anything

Nothing. That is a legitimate option and no brand will tell you so in November.

If you do want the date to mean something, use it the way the students in Nanjing did: as a day that does not require anybody else’s participation. The clothes are optional. The point is not.

Frequently asked questions

When is Singles Day 2026?

Singles Day 2026 falls on Wednesday 11 November. The date never moves, because the day is built on the four ones in 11.11. Black Friday follows sixteen days later, on Friday 27 November.

What is World Singles Day?

World Singles Day, like International Singles Day, is another name under which people search for the same 11.11, which in 2026 falls on Wednesday 11 November.

Where does Singles Day come from?

From students at Nanjing University in China, in 1993, who wanted a date for single people in a calendar full of days for couples. Alibaba turned it into a shopping event in 2009.

Is Singles Day bigger than Black Friday?

Yes, by a wide margin in total sales. It is the largest single shopping day in the world and moves more in twenty-four hours than Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined.

Should I buy on Singles Day or wait for Black Friday?

Buy on 11.11 if you want a specific size or colour, because the range is still complete. Wait for Black Friday if you want the deepest discount and can accept that your size may be gone.

Does Last Bucks do anything for Singles Day?

Whatever is reduced sits on the sale page from the start of the season, and the newsletter hears about it before anyone else.

Is Singles Day the same as Sint Maarten?

No. They fall on the same date, 11 November, and have nothing to do with each other. Sint Maarten is a Dutch and Belgian tradition with children, lanterns and songs at the door.