Chinese New Year in China: what to expect as a visitor

Chinese New Year falls on Saturday 6 February 2027. The Eve is Friday 5 February, and the Lantern Festival closes the season on Saturday 20 February. In the cities the festival is easy to enjoy: temple fairs, lantern shows, streets hung with red. Moving around is the hard part, because the 40 days around it are the longest travel rush of the Chinese year, and a few sights close on the Eve.

Should you travel to China for Chinese New Year?

Yes, if the festival is the point of the trip and you book transport and rooms early. The week after the Eve is when Beijing’s temple fairs run, lanterns light up Shanghai and Nanjing, and the decorations are at their fullest. UNESCO added the Spring Festival to its list of intangible cultural heritage in December 2024, for the cleaning, cooking, family dinners and public celebrations that go with it.

The price is the crowd on the move. In 2026 the railways carried 15.3 million passengers on 13 February, three days before the Eve, and 18.73 million on 23 February, the last day off, a record for the season. Hotel rates follow the same map. In Beijing and Shanghai, Ctrip prices quoted by a Beijing business paper stayed close to their March level over the 2026 holiday, while hotels in smaller destinations such as Beihai and Quanzhou charged three to four times more.

February is also winter. On the 1991 to 2020 climate normals, the month averages 0.6 °C in Beijing, 6.5 °C in Shanghai, 15.5 °C in Guangzhou and minus 11.9 °C in Harbin.

I would spend the festival week in one or two big cities and keep the long journeys for the days outside the peaks.

The 2027 dates

The festival days come from the lunar calendar and are already fixed. The days off are not.

The festival days

The Hong Kong Observatory’s 2027 calendar gives the key days. The last lunar month of the year has 29 days, so the Eve falls on the 29th.

Updated: October 27, 2026

The official holiday

Since 1 January 2025, State Council Decree 795 makes four days statutory: the Eve and the first three days of the year. With swapped weekend working days, the break runs eight days from the Eve, and the official explanation of the rules says it can run to nine when the Eve is a Friday, naming 2027 as the example. The 2026 break, set by the November 2025 notice, lasted nine days, from 15 to 23 February, with Saturday 14 and Saturday 28 February worked in exchange.

The 2027 notice had not been published on 10 October 2026; the last five came out between 25 October and 8 December. If it follows the rule, the break would run from Friday 5 to Saturday 13 February, with two weekend days turned into working days on dates still to be set. The whole year’s holidays are in the guide to the best time to visit China.

The travel season

Chunyun, the travel season, lasted 40 days in 2024, 2025 and 2026, starting 15 days before New Year’s Day and ending 24 days after it. In 2026 it ran from 2 February to 13 March and counted 9.41 billion trips between regions, according to the Ministry of Transport, 538 million of them by rail. If the pattern holds, the 2027 season runs from Friday 22 January to Tuesday 2 March. The official dates have come out between late December and late January.

What closes and what stays open

In the big cities, closures are short and specific. The 2026 festival is the best guide until the 2027 notices appear; in 2026 they came out between three weeks and a few days before the Eve.

Museums and sights

The Forbidden City’s Palace Museum closed for the whole of New Year’s Eve, 16 February 2026, and opened on every other day of the holiday, including Monday 23 February, when it would normally be shut. Hours stayed at 8:30 to 17:00, last entry 15:30, and tickets still went on sale at 20:00 seven days ahead, with none sold on the day. The National Museum of China did the same. In Shanghai, the Shanghai Museum opened both sites every day of the holiday, the Eve included, and its East site in Pudong took visitors without a booking.

Temples draw the biggest crowds on the first morning. Beijing’s Lama Temple opened at 7:00 on New Year’s Day 2026 and sold 40,000 tickets a day, online and only through its WeChat account; passport holders can buy full-price tickets there. Yonghegong metro station was closed until 18:00 that day.

Shops and restaurants

Chain stores stay open. According to a retail association survey quoted by the Ministry of Commerce, more than 99 % of the stores of the 20 largest supermarket chains opened over the 2026 holiday, and about a third stayed open longer. E-commerce platforms keep delivering, and more than a million restaurants signed up to Meituan’s “open over the festival” scheme in 2025.

Small family places are another matter. A Hangzhou newspaper’s list for 2025 showed neighbourhood restaurants closing for one to two weeks, snack shops most often, since they work long hours the rest of the year. If one address matters to you, check its dates before the Eve.

Banks and visa offices

Bank branches mostly close. In 2026 the financial regulator only promised that “an appropriate number” would stay open; in Hangzhou, the main banks kept a handful of branches with shorter hours and pointed customers to cash machines and apps.

Plan around the exit-entry offices, where stays are extended. Shanghai closed all its windows from 15 to 23 February 2026, and Guangzhou opened two half-days for urgent cases involving foreigners. If your permitted stay ends during the festival, sort it out before the Eve. The borders themselves stay open: the National Immigration Administration counted 17.8 million crossings over the 2026 holiday, and 460,000 foreigners entered without a visa.

Metro and taxis

City transport keeps running. Beijing’s transport commission ran nine metro lines late, up to 2:00, on the return days of 2026 and announced no change for the Eve; Shanghai Metro added late trains on the same days. DiDi tried a driver service fee during peak periods of the 2026 season without publishing the amount, and taxi surcharges are set city by city.

Train and plane tickets

When 12306 sales open

Train tickets go on sale 15 days ahead, counting the day of travel, on every channel; in February 2026 CCTV relayed 12306’s reminder that offers of 30 or 90 days are marketing. In practice the sale opens 14 days before departure: tickets for 2 February 2026, the first day of the season, went on sale on 19 January. Each station has its own opening hour, shown on 12306. Applied to 2027, the rule gives these dates, to be checked once the holiday notice is out.

Updated: October 27, 2026

Two tools change the odds. The waitlist takes an order on up to 60 train and date combinations and fills it if seats come back: 74.4 % of waitlist orders were filled over the 2026 season. It is open to any account that has passed 12306’s check of the person against the ID; the English site does not offer it, so with a foreign passport the route is the Chinese-language app. On the Beijing to Shanghai lines, a pilot started in July 2026 takes requests in the app 30 to 17 days ahead; nothing says whether foreign passports qualify. Booking step by step is in the train tickets guide.

Peak days and fares

The peaks repeat from year to year. In 2026 the departure peak came on Friday 13 February, three days before the Eve, and the return wave ran from day 4 to day 7, above 15 million rail passengers a day. When tickets for 15 February went on sale, trains from Beijing West to Zhengzhou sold out within a minute, the Beijing News reported.

Planes follow the same curve. The average domestic fare booked for the 2026 season was over 950 yuan before taxes, slightly above 2025, according to the travel platform Tongcheng and the Flight Manager app, both commercial sources. The first two days of the year were the cheapest: Beijing to Haikou cost 1,999 yuan on 14 February and 792 yuan on 17 February, New Year’s Day. After the holiday, leisure routes collapse, down to 320 yuan from Beijing to Sanya on 27 February.

Where to see the festival

None of the 2027 programmes had been announced on 10 October 2026. The 2026 editions below were first announced between October and the end of December 2025.

Beijing: the temple fairs

Beijing’s fairs open on New Year’s Day. In 2026 the Ditan and Longtan fairs, the 38th and 40th editions, ran from day 1 to day 7, 8:30 to 17:00, with food stalls, stages for acrobatics, opera and lion dances, and a daily re-enactment of the imperial sacrifice to the Earth at Ditan’s square altar at 9:00. Each costs 30 yuan, 15 for students and over-60s, under an official price notice in force since 2025. Ditan is near Yonghegong station, Longtan by Panjiayuan West on line 17.

The Changdian fair along Liulichang, a national heritage item known for books, calligraphy and antiques, is free and ran from 10:00 to 17:30. The Old Summer Palace held its first spring lantern night tour from 10 February to 3 March 2026, with more than 40 lantern groups modelled on the court festivals of the Qianlong era. The rest of the city is in the Beijing guide.

Shanghai: the Yuyuan lanterns

The Yuyuan Lantern Festival ran from 26 January to 3 March 2026 across six zones around Yu Garden and the Bund. Only the folk-art zone in the Yuyuan bazaar was ticketed, at 80 yuan, 50 for children and over-65s, with no peak pricing; entry opened at 14:00 on peak days and 16:00 on others, and the lanterns stayed dark on the Eve. The festival drew six million visits, about 10 % from abroad, according to People’s Daily. The classical garden is not included in the lantern ticket.

The Jade Buddha Temple stayed free throughout the 2026 festival and asked for a booking only for the night of the Eve, New Year’s Day and the night of day 4. The rest of the city is in the Shanghai guide.

Guangzhou: the flower fairs

Guangzhou’s festival comes before the Eve. In 2026 the city held 11 flower fairs, one per district, with 2,655 stalls, according to the city’s English portal. The historic one, on Xihu Road and Jiaoyu Road in Yuexiu, ran from 08:30 on 13 February to 02:00 on New Year’s Day; Gongyuanqian station, on lines 1 and 2, is about 100 metres away. Walking the flower fair has been a national heritage item since 2021.

Harbin: the ice festival

Harbin’s Ice and Snow World opened on 17 December 2025 at 328 yuan, stayed open from New Year’s Day and hosted the Harbin stage of the national Gala. Then record warmth melted it: Xinhua reported that it closed for good on 21 February 2026, day 5, with refunds. In 2027 New Year’s Day comes eleven days earlier in the season, on 6 February, but no programme can promise the weather.

Nanjing: the Qinhuai lanterns

The Qinhuai Lantern Fair, on the national heritage list since 2006, held its 40th edition from 17 February to 6 March 2026, then stayed lit until 31 March, with about 390 lantern groups. The Fuzimiao core area needed a booking over the holiday through a mini-program in Alipay, according to Xinhua Jiangsu.

The customs you will see

The Eve: dinner and the Gala

The Eve is a family night. UNESCO’s description lists the cleaning and food shopping beforehand, the reunion dinner, staying up to see the year in, new clothes, offerings and visits to elders. On Meituan, more than 40,000 restaurants took online bookings for Eve dinners in 2025.

Most households have the Spring Festival Gala of China Media Group on. In 2026 it held 79.29 % of the national television audience, with an average of 325 million people watching or listening at any minute, according to CCTV.

Red envelopes

Red envelopes, hongbao, carry money, most often from older relatives to children. Many now travel by phone: in its 2026 Spring Festival report, as relayed by the Chinese tech press, WeChat counted more than 600 million red envelopes sent with custom covers.

Little Year and day 5

The festival starts a week before the Eve, on the Little Year, when the kitchen god is sent off to report on the household. Xinhua notes that the north keeps the 23rd day of the last month and the south the 24th, which in 2027 means 30 and 31 January. On day 5, according to another Xinhua piece, families welcome the god of wealth, “send away” poverty and sweep the rubbish out of the house.

Fireworks and where they are banned

Fireworks depend on the city. Beijing has banned them across the whole municipality since 1 January 2022, apart from a zone at the Universal resort. Shanghai bans them inside its Outer Ring Road under a 2016 regulation that the city police restated for the 2026 festival. Other cities open set hours: Dongguan allowed them all day on the Eve and New Year’s Day 2026, then from 6:00 to 23:00 until the Lantern Festival. In central Beijing and Shanghai, do not expect firecrackers at midnight.

The Year of the Goat

2027 is a 丁未 year, the Year of the Goat in the Hong Kong Observatory’s English; the same character also covers the sheep. The year name changes on New Year’s Day, two days after Lichun, the start of spring on 4 February, which some fortune-tellers use instead, as the Observatory explains. Astrologers call it a Fire Goat year, after the traditional five phases; official calendars give no element.

Before you book

The visa comes first. The 30-day exemption for ordinary passports from most European countries, the UK, Canada and Australia ends at midnight on 31 December 2026, under the Foreign Ministry’s notice of November 2025, and no extension had been announced on 10 October 2026. The two previous extensions were announced on 22 November 2024 and 3 November 2025. Until a decision comes, a trip for the festival needs a visa, or the 240-hour transit exemption, open to 57 countries including the United States, with an onward ticket to a third country. The rules are in the visa-free guide, the outlook on the page about the extension.

Then, in this order:

• watch for the State Council holiday notice, due between late October and early December;
• book a room you can cancel for the festival week;
• note the 12306 sale date of every train you need;
• set up Alipay or WeChat Pay and an eSIM before you fly.

Frequently asked questions

When is Chinese New Year 2027? On Saturday 6 February. The night before is the high point for families, and the season closes two weeks later, with the lanterns of 20 February.

What animal is 2027 in the Chinese zodiac? The Goat, sometimes translated as the Sheep. Its year runs from 6 February 2027 to 25 January 2028, when the Monkey takes over.

How long is the Chinese New Year holiday in China? Four statutory days, stretched by swapped weekends to eight in a normal year and to nine when the Eve is a Friday, as in 2027, once the State Council confirms it.

Is China closed during Chinese New Year? No. Transport, hotels, chain stores and most sights work. What shuts is targeted: some museums on the Eve, bank branches and visa offices for the week, small family restaurants for a week or two.

Is it bad to visit China during Chinese New Year? No. The holiday is China’s own peak of tourism, with 596 million domestic trips over the 2026 break according to the culture and tourism ministry. The drawbacks are practical, full trains on the peak days and higher prices outside the big cities.

How many people travel in China during Chinese New Year? Private cars account for most of it: 7.46 billion of the 2026 season’s trips were self-driven, against 94 million by air. On the busiest day, 22 February 2026, 380 million trips were made.

Can foreigners buy train tickets for Chinese New Year? Yes, with a passport, on 12306 or at a station, under the same 15-day rule as everyone else. The waitlist works only in the Chinese-language app after an identity check, and the Beijing to Shanghai pre-booking says nothing about foreign passports.

Why does the date of Chinese New Year change every year? Because it follows the moon. New Year’s Day is the second new moon after the winter solstice, which places it between 21 January and 20 February.

When is Chinese New Year over in China? The days off end around day 7 or 8. Tradition closes the festival on the 15th day, the Lantern Festival, and the travel season runs on into early March.

Where is the best place to celebrate Chinese New Year in China? It depends on your dates. Guangzhou’s flower fairs come before the Eve, Beijing’s temple fairs during the first week, and the lanterns of Shanghai and Nanjing until the 15th day.