Chinese festivals
Chinese New Year 2027, the Year of the Goat
Leon·Updated November 10, 2026·8 minChinese New Year 2027 falls on Saturday 6 February. It starts the Year of the Goat, and the official holiday in China runs from 5 to 13 February.
In Chinese it is , the Spring Festival, or simply , "passing the year". It is the biggest holiday of the year, and it lasts much longer than one day: the preparations start a week before, and the season ends with the Lantern Festival two weeks after.
We make Dengdeng, an app for reading stories from China at four levels, from Beginner to Hard. Every Chinese word on this page works the way it does in the app: tap it for its pinyin, meaning and audio.
The dates in 2027
The date follows the lunar calendar. is the first day of the first lunar month, so it moves between 21 January and 20 February.
| Day | 2027 | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| , Little Year | Saturday 30 January (north), Sunday 31 January (south) | The big clean-up. The New Year season starts. |
| , New Year's Eve | Friday 5 February | The reunion dinner. The holiday starts. |
| , the first day | Saturday 6 February | New Year's Day. Visits and greetings. |
| , the second day | Sunday 7 February | Married daughters visit their parents. |
| , the fifth day | Wednesday 10 February | Many shops open again. |
| , the Lantern Festival | Saturday 20 February | Lanterns and sweet rice balls. The season ends. |
The days of the first month are counted , , and so on, up to . People say " I'm going to my aunt's" as you would say "on the third".
The official holiday is nine days, from 5 to 13 February. People work on Sunday 31 January and Sunday 14 February to make up for two of them. Our Golden Week page explains how these swapped working days work.
Getting ready
Little Year, , is a week before New Year's Eve. Families start the , the big clean-up, to sweep out the old year.
Then comes the shopping for , the New Year goods: food for the visits, sweets, new clothes, and red decorations.
Hundreds of millions of people travel home for the holiday. The travel season is called . It lasts about forty days, and train tickets for the days before New Year's Eve sell out soon after they go on sale.
Red on the door
On the last day of the year, families paste a around the front door. It is a pair of lines with the same number of characters, one on each side of the door, and a shorter line, the , across the top.
Many doors also get a , "good fortune", written on a square of red paper. Many people hang it upside down, mostly on inner doors and on rice jars.
Upside down is , dào. It sounds like , dào, "to arrive". An upside-down says : good fortune has arrived.
The story of
The folk tale says that a monster called came out of the sea or the mountains every New Year's Eve and attacked villages.
The villagers found that was afraid of three things: the color red, fire, and loud noise. So they hung red paper on their doors, kept their lights on all night, and set off firecrackers.
That is the story behind the red , staying up all night, and , setting off firecrackers. The tale also explains as "getting through ".
Many large cities now limit or ban firecrackers, so the loudest night of the year depends on where you are.
New Year's Eve
is the night for the , the reunion dinner, at home with the whole family. Our page on New Year greetings has the dinner, the TV gala and the red envelopes, and what to say to each person at the table.
The first five days
On , people put on new clothes and visit relatives and neighbors to wish them a happy new year. That visit is .
There are a few things people avoid on :
- Sweeping or taking out the rubbish. You would sweep the new luck out of the house.
- Breaking things. If a bowl breaks, someone says , "safe every year". , "broken", and , "year", are both suì.
- Unlucky words. Nobody talks about death or illness, and nobody argues.
On , married daughters visit their parents' home. That is .
On , many shops and restaurants open again. In the north, families eat dumplings once more.
New Year food
Many dishes are on the table because their names sound lucky.
| Food | Why people eat it |
|---|---|
| , dumplings | The shape is like an old silver ingot, so they stand for money. Eaten at midnight in much of the north. |
| , fish | sounds like , "surplus": , a surplus every year. |
| , New Year cake | sounds like , "high": every year a little higher. More common in the south. |
| , sweet rice balls | Round, like a family that is all together. Eaten on the Lantern Festival. |
| , mandarin oranges | sounds like , "lucky" in some southern dialects. Given as gifts. |
The Year of the Goat
The animal changes on , not on 1 January. A baby born on 5 February 2027 is a horse, and a baby born the next day is a goat.
2027 is a fire goat year, . Our page on the 2027 Year of the Goat explains the name, and the Chinese zodiac page has all twelve animals and a lookup for your own birth date.
Chinese New Year words
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Spring Festival, the Chinese New Year | |
| to celebrate the New Year; literally "to pass the year" | |
| happy new year | |
| New Year's Eve | |
| the New Year's Eve dinner | |
| the red couplets around the door | |
| good fortune | |
| a red envelope with money | |
| to visit someone with New Year wishes | |
| to set off firecrackers | |
| the New Year travel season | |
| New Year goods: food, sweets and decorations | |
| the Lantern Festival |
Common questions
When is Chinese New Year 2027?
Saturday 6 February 2027. New Year's Eve is Friday 5 February, and the holiday in China runs from 5 to 13 February.
What animal is 2027?
The goat, . English sources also say the sheep or the ram. It is a fire goat year, , and it lasts until 25 January 2028.
When is Chinese New Year 2028?
Wednesday 26 January 2028. It starts the Year of the Monkey.
How long does Chinese New Year last?
The public holiday is nine days in 2027, from 5 to 13 February. The season runs from Little Year, a week before, to the Lantern Festival on the fifteenth day, so about three weeks.
Why is it called the Spring Festival?
China renamed the lunar new year in the 20th century, when 1 January became the official new year. The lunar new year falls near , the start of spring in the old solar calendar.
What do you say at Chinese New Year?
, "happy new year", or in speech. Our greetings page has the wishes for health, money and work, and the puns for the goat year.
Sources
- General Office of the State Council: the 2027 holiday schedule, published by Xinhua on 5 November 2026.
- Dates: the lunar dates on this page were checked with the open-source calendar library lunar-python and with the State Council schedule.
The holiday is a good time to read some Chinese. Today's stories in Dengdeng are about life in China, at Beginner, Easy, Medium and Hard, and one story from each daily edition is free.
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The full festival calendar →
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