Home Bargains closing stores for three days means more than 600 UK sites will shut on Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day. The move affects around 28,000 staff across TJ Morris Ltd’s estate and removes the chain from three of the year’s biggest trading dates.
Tom Morris opened the first Home Bargains store in Liverpool in 1976, and the chain now says the festive closure applies across its UK network. For customers, the practical point is simple: these stores will not trade on December 25, December 26 or January 1.
Tom Morris and Liverpool in 1976
Tom Morris founded Home Bargains in 1976 after opening the first store in Liverpool. The business now says it employs around 28,000 staff and trades as TJ Morris Ltd, a scale that makes a three-day shutdown a nationwide operational decision rather than a local one.
£4.5bn in revenue in its most recent full financial year gives the closure more weight than a routine holiday schedule. Home Bargains also said revenue rose by 7.9% in that period, while 15 new stores opened in the year to June 30, 2025, taking the total to 632.
632 stores, more than 600 shut
632 stores is the number that complicates the headline. The company said all of its more than 600 UK stores will close for three days, but the year-end estate was also described as 632 after those 15 openings. Read together, the figures suggest the shutdown covers the whole network, even though the wording does not separately restate the exact count.
More than 600 stores closing at once leaves little room for a partial operating pattern. For shoppers, the immediate takeaway is to buy ahead of Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day if they rely on Home Bargains for festive essentials or last-minute items.
Christmas Day through New Year’s Day
December 25, December 26 and January 1 are the only dates named in the closure notice. That leaves the rest of the holiday period outside this announcement, with trading elsewhere in the festive week still dependent on the chain’s normal schedule.
28,000 staff will get the clearest operational change: three fixed days away from tills, stockrooms and deliveries at the same time. Whether the closure applies to every one of the 632 stores now in the estate is not explicitly reconciled, but the direction is plain enough for customers planning their festive shop.
