Selling and marketing
How Long Do Girl Scouts Sell Cookies? 2026 Season Dates
Season dates are local, and here is how to find yours and plan your own cookie sales around them.
On this page
- Who decides when cookie season starts
- What one published 2025-2026 calendar shows
- How to find the dates for your zip code
- What a ten week season means for your own cookie sales
- When should you launch your own cookies
- Three money mistakes to avoid before the season opens
- A worked example with your own numbers
What to remember
- There is no single national cookie season. Your council sets the dates.
- The zip code search shows when cookie season starts in your area.
- One published 2025-2026 calendar runs from January 6 to March 15.
- That same calendar puts in-person sales at January 30 to March 15.
- Plan your own cookie push around those weeks, not on top of them.
That question is really about timing, not trivia. If you sell cookies from home, knowing how long to girl scouts sell cookies tells you when your regular buyers are already being asked for cookie money. Plan around that window instead of running straight into it.
Who decides when cookie season starts
Girl Scout cookie season is not one national calendar. The Girl Scouts Cookie FAQ sends people to a zip code search box to learn when cookie season starts in their area. A start date a friend posts online may belong to a council two states away from yours.
The Girl Scout Blog describes the same step. You enter your zip code and it shows when your council’s sale begins. That is the only date worth planning around, because your council runs the sale you will actually see.
For you, the practical takeaway is simple. Your buyers live near you, so the sale that affects you is the one happening in your town. A national date tells you nothing about your week.
What one published 2025-2026 calendar shows
January 30 to March 15
In-person cookie sales on one published 2025-2026 calendar
The USAGSO 2025-2026 Cookie Program Calendar is a real example of how a season is laid out. It lists January 6 as the start of Digital Cookie Direct Ship and Girl Delivery preorders. The ordering side opens before anyone stands at a table.
The same calendar lists January 30 to March 15 for in-person cookie sales. Read the gap between those two dates as a planning clue. Preorders open, then the tables go up a little over three weeks later.
From the January 6 start to the March 15 finish is about ten weeks. In-person selling covers roughly the last six of them. That is one group’s published shape of a season, not a rule that binds every council in the country.
The calendar also separates ordering ahead from selling in person. If you take preorders, you now know the weeks when your buyers are already being asked to order cookies from someone else.
How to find the dates for your zip code
Skip the national guessing and go straight to your own area. These steps take a few minutes and give you dates you can put on a calendar.
Open the cookie search
Go to the Girl Scouts cookie page and find the Find Cookies search box.
Enter your zip code
Type the zip code where you bake and sell. The result shows when cookie season starts in your area.
Confirm the end date
The search is built around the start. Ask your local council for the last day of sales.
Write both dates down
Put the start and end on your kitchen calendar before you print order forms or promise a delivery week.
Once you have both dates, put them where you will see them every day. The point is to stop guessing in December and start planning with real weeks.
What a ten week season means for your own cookie sales
If your buyers are the same families who buy from a troop, their cookie budget lands inside those weeks. Orders for your own cookies can slow while the sale runs. That is not a reason to stop baking. It is a reason to move your push.
Two paths work. Sell something the troop sale does not offer, like a custom order for a birthday or a flavor you make only to order. Or plan your biggest push for the weeks before preorders open or after in-person sales end.
Whatever you pick, price it before the season starts. Our guide to pricing cookies to sell walks through cost per dozen, and how to sell cookies from home covers setup and first orders.
If you are still choosing what to bake, read best cookies to sell before you lock in your lineup for the season.
One weekend test beats a month of wondering. Take orders during the season and again two weeks after it ends. Compare the two and set next year’s launch from what actually came in.
When should you launch your own cookies
Look at your own sales history first. If your orders peaked in a month outside the local season last year, launch there again and stop fighting the calendar.
If you are new and have no history, pick a week two to three weeks before preorders open in your area. That gets your cookies in front of buyers before the troop sale fills their attention.
Write your launch week next to the council dates on one page. If the two overlap, move yours. A small change in timing is cheaper than a slow month.
Three money mistakes to avoid before the season opens
The second mistake is launching the same week the local sale starts. Your regulars only have so much room for cookie spending in one month, and the troop gets there first.
The third is pricing without your overhead. A flat monthly cost is easy to forget and easy to undercharge for. Divide it by the batches you really sell, not the batches you hope to sell.
A worked example with your own numbers
Say a batch of 24 cookies uses $9.00 of ingredients and packaging. You pay yourself $18.00 for about an hour of work. Your $20 a month shop spread over 10 batches adds $2.00. That is $29.00 for 24 cookies, or about $1.21 each.
At $18.00 a dozen you take in $36.00 for the batch and keep $7.00. That is a margin of about 19 percent after ingredients, labor, and overhead. Leave the $2.00 out and the same dozen looks like 25 percent, which is money you did not make.
Swap in your own numbers before you use this. Ingredient cost, your hourly pay, and your monthly shop cost are the three lines that move the price most.
Brevl is one flat $20 a month with no cut of your sales, so the overhead line stays put as orders grow. You can try it for 14 days.
Try the free bake pricing calculator
Free, no signup.
- Cookie Order Form for Girl Scouts: Fields to Copy
- How to Sell Cookies From Home Online: 6 Steps and Costs
- How to Price Cookies for a Bake Sale: Cost per Dozen
Common questions
Do all Girl Scout councils sell cookies at the same time?
No. Each council runs its own sale, so start and end dates differ from place to place. The zip code search shows when cookie season starts in your area. A date you see posted by a friend or in a national article may not apply where you live.
When do preorders start on the published calendar?
One 2025-2026 calendar lists January 6 as the first day of Digital Cookie Direct Ship and Girl Delivery preorders. In-person sales on that same calendar run January 30 to March 15. Those dates belong to one group, so confirm your own council before you plan around them.
Should I sell my own cookies during Girl Scout season?
It depends on who buys from you. If your customers are the families buying boxes, orders may slow while the sale runs. If you sell custom orders or a style the sale does not offer, the season may not touch you. Try one weekend and compare.
What dates should go on my own order form?
Use your council's start and end dates as the backdrop, then set your own pickup and delivery days around them. Give yourself a week after the season ends for the orders you could not fill during it. Write both dates on the form.
Sources
General information, not legal or tax advice. The pricing example uses your own numbers.