Chinese New Year 2027 falls on Saturday 6 February, with New Year's Eve on 5 February. The public holiday runs 5 to 11 February, and the festival itself lasts fifteen days, ending with the Lantern Festival on 20 February.
2027 is the Year of the Goat. Anyone born before 6 February 2027 is still in the Year of the Horse.
It is not one day, it is fifteen
Ask a foreigner when Chinese New Year is and you will get a date. Ask a Chinese family and you will get a fortnight, because the frame is bigger than the day.
The festival runs from the last evening of the old lunar year through to the fifteenth day of the new one, and each stretch has its own job. Preparation comes first, then the reunion, then the visits, then the slow return to normal. The government declares about a week of public holiday, but nobody treats the seventh day as the end. Shops reopen, sure. The feeling lingers until the lanterns go up.
Dates move every year because the whole thing sits on the lunar calendar. In 2026 New Year fell on 17 February. In 2027 it is 6 February. In 2028 it jumps back to 26 January. The full pattern is in the festival calendar.
What happens on each day
Regional practice varies a lot, and every family will tell you their version is the correct one.
The spine below is shared almost everywhere.
Before the day: Little Year 小年
Roughly a week out, households clean properly and send off the Kitchen God, who is said to report on the family's behaviour over the past year. The north marks it on the twenty-third day of the twelfth month, the south on the twenty-fourth. In 2027 that is 30 and 31 January. This is also when the shopping happens, because markets turn nasty in the last few days.
New Year's Eve 除夕 Chúxī
The centre of gravity for the whole festival. Families gather for the reunion dinner, doors get a pair of red couplets, and children receive red envelopes. Many households stay up past midnight, a custom called 守岁 shǒusuì, keeping watch over the turning of the year. In 2027 this is 5 February.
Day one 初一
Visiting starts. Younger people call on older relatives, greetings are exchanged at the door, and nobody sweeps the floor. New clothes are the norm. In northern China the day is basically organised around dumplings.
Days two to four
More visits, and the traffic gets serious. Married daughters traditionally return to their own parents' home on the second day. For most people this stretch is a blur of meals at other people's houses.
Day five 破五 pò wǔ
Literally breaking five. The restrictions of the first days are lifted, the God of Wealth gets welcomed, and sweeping becomes allowed again. For a lot of people this is the day the holiday quietly ends and normal life restarts.
Day fifteen: the Lantern Festival 元宵节
The first full moon of the new year, marked with lanterns, riddles written on them, and sweet rice balls. It closes the festival. In 2027 it lands on 20 February, and the whole year is laid out in the festival calendar.
The reunion dinner carries the whole thing
Chinese New Year is not about fireworks or parades. It is about a meal, and the meal has rules.
The dishes are chosen for what their names sound like.
A whole fish is served because 鱼 yú, fish, sounds identical to 余 yú, surplus, so a fish on the table means there will be more than enough next year. Glutinous rice cake, 年糕 niángāo, sounds like rising higher year after year. Dumplings are folded to look like the old gold ingots. Oranges and tangerines appear in bowls because their names echo luck and gold.
One thing to notice at the table: the fish is usually not finished. Leaving some behind is the point.
Red envelopes, and the rules nobody explains
A 红包 hóngbāo is a small red paper packet with money inside, given by older family members to younger ones. Children get them. Unmarried adults often still get them. Once you are married and earning, you are generally on the giving side, and the pool gets bigger every year.
Three details that are easy to get wrong. The amount should avoid four, because 四 sì sounds like the word for death; six and eight are the good numbers, for smoothness and wealth. Notes should be crisp and new, which is why bank queues in the last week of the lunar year are enormous. And the money is not payment. It is meant to carry good fortune into the year, which is why refusing one is awkward.
Digital envelopes are normal now. WeChat red envelopes do the same job through a phone, including a group version where the amount each person gets is random. If a Chinese friend sends you one, open it. Leaving it unopened for a day is read as a small snub.
What to say, and when to say it
Greetings here are not interchangeable. Some are for anyone, some are for a shopkeeper taking your money, some are for an elderly relative. The safe general one is 新年快乐 Xīnnián kuàilè, which works in every room in the country.
| Chinese | Meaning | When it lands |
|---|---|---|
| 新年快乐 | Happy new year | Anyone, anywhere |
| 恭喜发财 | Wishing you prosperity | Shops, colleagues, anyone you owe money |
| 万事如意 | May everything go your way | A safe all-purpose wish |
| 身体健康 | Good health | Older relatives. Never wasted |
| 年年有余 | Surplus every year | At the dinner table, next to the fish |
| 大吉大利 | Great luck and profit | Cards, gifts, business |
One small pronunciation trap worth knowing: 正月, the first lunar month, is read zhēngyuè, not zhèngyuè. The character takes a different tone here than it does in almost every other context. Say it wrong and you will be understood, but you will be understood as a beginner.
The things you are not supposed to do
Most of these are ordinary politeness with a superstition attached, and Chinese families follow them to wildly different degrees. Knowing them matters more than obeying them, because the corrections are always good-natured.
- Do not sweep on the first day. You would be sweeping the year's luck out the door. If you must tidy up, sweep towards the inside of the house.
- Do not break anything. If you do, say 岁岁平安 suìsuì píng'ān straight away. It plays on 碎 suì, to shatter, and turns the accident into a wish for peace every year.
- Avoid the number four in gifts and envelopes, and avoid giving clocks, because 送钟 sòng zhōng, to give a clock, sounds like attending a funeral.
- No haircuts in the first lunar month, traditionally. The old saying behind the rule is worth more as vocabulary than as superstition.
- Skip the gloomy vocabulary. Death, illness, poverty, bankruptcy. There is a whole set of euphemisms for this, and you will hear people steer around a word mid-sentence rather than say it in January.
Twelve words that get you through the fortnight
Everything below comes up in ordinary conversation during the festival, not just in textbooks.
Where outsiders tend to get it wrong
恭喜发财 is Cantonese in disguise
The banner spelling you see in London or San Francisco, "Gong hei fat choy", is Cantonese. In Mandarin the same four characters come out as Gōngxǐ fācái, and that is what you should say in Beijing. Both are correct. They are just different languages wearing the same suit.
The zodiac year does not start on 1 January
A baby born on 20 January 2027 is a Horse, not a Goat, because the Goat year begins on 6 February. This catches out a lot of people born in January or early February. The full list of animals and years is in the zodiac guide.
Spring Festival is not a religious holiday
It is a family holiday with agricultural roots and a pile of folk customs attached. Some of it is Buddhist, some of it is older than Buddhism, and a large part of it is about eating well with the people you belong to. That is why it travels so easily. You do not need to believe anything to take part.
Say it out loud before you say it to someone
The 500 phrase pack has a section on festivals and family occasions, with audio for every line and the pinyin written out. It is the difference between recognising a greeting and being able to return it.