Lunar New Year 2027: Year of the Goat

When is Lunar New Year 2027?

In 2027, Lunar New Year's Day is Saturday, February 6, 2027. Celebrations start the evening before with a family reunion dinner, and the Year of the Goat runs until the eve of the following Lunar New Year.

The date moves each year because it follows the moon. Lunar New Year begins on the new moon that starts the first month of the Chinese lunisolar calendar, usually the second new moon after the December solstice. The dates on this page follow China's calendar, based on Beijing time.

Korea and Vietnam calculate the same calendar for their own time zones, so Seollal and Tết almost always match China's date but can occasionally differ. Tibetan Losar and Mongolian Tsagaan Sar follow their own calculations and can fall on a different day.

Is Chinese New Year in January?

Sometimes. Lunar New Year never comes before January 21 or after February 20, so it lands in late January in some years and in February in others. Between 2020 and 2040 it falls in January in 8 of 21 years: 2020, 2023, 2025, 2028, 2031, 2033, 2036 and 2039.

The next Lunar New Year to fall in January is Wednesday, January 26, 2028, which begins the Year of the Monkey. In those years it appears on the list of January holidays.

Lunar New Year dates 2020–2040

This table lists each year's date, weekday and zodiac animal, and whether the holiday falls in January. Use it to check a birth year with the rule in the next section.

What Chinese zodiac am I if born in January?

Your Chinese zodiac animal depends on the lunar year you were born in, not the calendar year. Because Lunar New Year never falls before January 21, anyone born from January 1 to January 20 belongs to the previous year's animal. If you were born between January 21 and January 31, compare your birthday with that year's Lunar New Year:

1. Find your birth year in the table above.
2. If your birthday is before that year's Lunar New Year, your animal is the one for the year before.
3. If your birthday is on or after the Lunar New Year date, your animal is that year's.

Some practitioners of traditional Chinese astrology change the animal at Lichun, the start of spring, around February 4, instead of at Lunar New Year. Under that method every January birthday belongs to the previous year's animal. For the Western signs of January birthdays, see January zodiac signs.

The 12 zodiac animals in order

The animals repeat in a 12-year cycle: Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog and Pig. A popular legend explains the order as a race called by the Jade Emperor, which the Rat won by riding on the Ox's back and jumping ahead at the finish. Each animal also pairs with one of five elements (wood, fire, earth, metal and water), creating a 60-year cycle.

The Goat is also translated as Sheep or Ram, because the Chinese word yáng can mean either goat or sheep. In Vietnam, the Cat takes the place of the Rabbit and the Buffalo takes the place of the Ox.

For a January birthday in any of these years, apply the rule above: if you were born before that year's Lunar New Year, use the previous year's animal (one row up, or Pig for a Rat year).

How Lunar New Year is celebrated

Spring Festival in China

In mainland China the holiday is called Spring Festival (Chūnjié), and people travel home in huge numbers for the New Year's Eve reunion dinner. The meal often includes fish, whose name (yú) sounds like the word for surplus, and dumplings in northern China. Homes are cleaned beforehand to sweep out bad luck, then decorated with red couplets and lanterns, and firecrackers and lion dances greet the new year.

Red envelopes of money, called hóngbāo in Mandarin and lai see in Cantonese, are given to children and unmarried younger relatives. The festival ends on the 15th day of the first month, 14 days after Lunar New Year, with the Lantern Festival, when families display lanterns and eat sweet rice balls called tangyuan under the first full moon of the lunar year.

Seollal in Korea

In South Korea, Seollal is a three-day public holiday spent with family. Many people wear hanbok, perform sebae, a deep New Year's bow to elders, who give money in return, and eat tteokguk, a rice-cake soup said to add a year to your age.

Tết in Vietnam

Tết Nguyên Đán is Vietnam's biggest holiday. Families make bánh chưng, square sticky-rice cakes, decorate with peach blossoms in the north and yellow apricot blossoms in the south, and give lucky money called lì xì.

Elsewhere

Lunar New Year is also a public holiday in Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, and cities with large Chinese communities, such as San Francisco, hold parades. It is not a federal holiday in the United States. Japan, by contrast, has celebrated New Year on January 1 since adopting the Gregorian calendar in 1873.

Related

• January holidays
• Zodiac signs
• New Year's Day
• National days
• January facts
• January 2027 calendar