San Bernardino County, CA Trash & Recycling: Holiday Pickup Schedule (2026)

The holiday rule sits in County Code § 33.0804(a)(3), part of Title 3, Division 3, Chapter 8, Article 1 (Refuse Storage). Under § 33.0804(a), every owner, operator or occupant of a residence, premises, business establishment or industry is responsible for removing the refuse that builds up on the property, and refuse cannot stay past the periods set in § 33.0805. Three events pause that clock: strikes, severe weather or natural disasters such as earthquakes or fires that make collection impossible with normal equipment, and official holidays that interrupt the normal seven day collection cycle. For holidays, the Code says collection may be postponed until the next working day.

Two features of the text matter. First, the Code does not list the holidays. It says only "official holidays," so the calendar of which days count belongs to the refuse collection operator and its service area, not to the Code. Second, the make-up rule is a postponement to the next working day, not a skipped week and not a fixed day-by-day slide. Nothing in § 33.0804 lets a pickup be cancelled outright.

The frequency floor in § 33.0805 still applies once a holiday passes. Waste containing garbage from a residence must leave the premises at least once each seven day period. Garbage from hotels, food establishments and other businesses must go at least twice each seven day period. Rubbish without garbage must go at least once every 14 days. The Department of Public Health, Division of Environmental Health Services (DEHS) can require more frequent collection under § 33.0805(d) when the minimum frequency creates an unhealthful, unsightly or public nuisance condition.

Container placement follows § 33.0808(a): residential containers go out for not more than 12 hours before scheduled pick-up and come in within 24 hours after pick-up. If a holiday pushes pickup to the next working day, the 12-hour window is measured against the actual scheduled pick-up. Under § 33.0801, DEHS enforces the Article within the unincorporated area only. Cities such as San Bernardino, Fontana, Rancho Cucamonga, Ontario and Victorville run their own collection and holiday calendars under their own codes. No county-run page with dated 2026 or 2027 holiday collection dates was found, so this page reports only what the Code prints.