Blog

Business hours on WhatsApp Business: how to set them and what they are for

Published on October 14, 2026

Business hours in WhatsApp Business live in your business profile.

It is information the app shows customers before a chat even starts.

The official page on editing your business profile says a complete, up-to-date profile reduces messages asking exactly that: whether you’re open, on which days and until what time.

Where to find it and how to fill it in

The steps are the same on Android and iPhone.

According to the Android version and the iPhone version:

  1. Open the Tools tab and tap Profile.
  2. Tap the Business hours field.
  3. Pick one of the three schedule options and fill in the days.
  4. Tap Save.

On iPhone there is also a Clear option, which removes the hours and leaves the field blank again, according to the same iPhone page.

The three official options

The Help Center lists three schedule options:

  • Open for selected hours: you turn on the days and enter the hours for each one. This fits a clinic open Monday to Friday, a salon closed on Sundays or a shop with different Saturday hours.
  • Always open: you turn on the days you’re open, without entering hours. It fits businesses that serve all day on those days.
  • Appointments only: you turn on the days you see people by appointment. The profile makes it clear that customers need to book first rather than just show up.

The app won’t add holidays, closures or lunch breaks for you.

If Saturday hours change, a holiday closes the clinic or a lunch break needs to show, someone has to edit the field.

What’s in the profile is what customers see.

How this connects to the away message

Profile hours don’t notify people who message at night on their own.

The away message does that, and it only gets the “Outside of business hours” option once hours are set in your profile.

The official away message page says so clearly: the option is only available if you have set business hours in your business profile.

With your hours saved, the usual steps are:

  1. Fill in Business hours under Profile.
  2. Under Tools, open Away message and turn on Send away message.
  3. Under Schedule, choose Outside of business hours.
  4. Choose the recipients and tap Save.

The same page notes that the phone needs an internet connection for the away message to go out.

Without internet, the message isn’t sent, even with the right hours in the profile.

What business hours solve and what they don’t

They solve:

  • Showing on your profile which days and hours you’re open.
  • Powering the default quick reply for hours once the profile is filled in, as the quick replies page describes.
  • Unlocking the automatic away message outside those hours.

They don’t solve:

  • Answering “are you open tomorrow? It’s a holiday”. The profile doesn’t know the holiday calendar.
  • Booking an open slot. It shows when you’re open, not the day’s appointments.
  • Serving customers who wrote after closing. The away message notifies; the person who handles the request is still a human, or a service built for that.

Common setup mistakes

Leaving the field empty and putting hours only in the About line.

About is easy to change and easy to miss; the Business hours field is what the app treats as profile data, and it is what unlocks away messages outside those hours.

Choosing Always open when you close for lunch or at night.

Customers read “always” and message at 11 p.m. expecting someone to reply.

Forgetting to update hours over a long holiday.

The profile still shows a normal week, the away message doesn’t trigger during the day, and chats go unanswered while the business looks open.

Using profile hours as an appointment calendar.

Clinics and salons need open slots per professional; the profile field only says whether the place is open.

Where our assistant comes in

Profile hours and away messages belong to the app.

They notify and inform.

The assistant we set up works from your business content, checks the real calendar when someone wants to book and hands over to a person anything off script.

Our standard connection is the official API, not the app: the profile field stays useful as a storefront, and after-hours service becomes an actual answer, not just a notice.

If your problem today is customers constantly asking about your hours, fill in the profile and turn on the away message outside those hours.

If the problem is that questions come in and nobody answers, that is a different issue: it is about customer service, not profile settings.

Sources