Lunar New Year 2027: dates, holidays and working around it

Year	Lunar New Year	Zodiac animal
2026	Tuesday 17 February	Horse
2027	Saturday 6 February	Goat
2028	Wednesday 26 January	Monkey

The date follows China's table. Vietnam's Tết usually falls on the same day, and Korea's Seollal does too, but they can differ by a day in some years.

Why the date moves

Lunar New Year is the second new moon after the winter solstice, so it moves between 21 January and 20 February. Because the Chinese calendar adds a leap month every few years, it doesn't drift like the Islamic calendar does: it jumps back and forth within that window.

How long the break lasts

• China: a public holiday of about a week around the day, with the weekends before and after worked to make it longer. Many people travel home in what is called the largest annual migration of people in the world.
• Vietnam: Tết is the biggest holiday of the year, often with a break of five to nine days.
• South Korea: Seollal gives three days around the day.
• Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan and others: from two days to about a week, depending on the place and the year.

What it means for work

Factories and suppliers in China often close for two to four weeks, from before the holiday until well after it, because many workers leave the cities and come back late. Order early, and expect delays in shipping and replies for about two weeks after the holiday. For global teams, treat the week before and the week after as slow.

What you could say

"Happy Lunar New Year!" works everywhere. In Mandarin, "Xin nian kuai le" means "happy new year", and in Cantonese "Gung hei fat choy" means "wishing you prosperity".

See it for your team

Open the places you work with and look at the calendar: China, Vietnam, South Korea and the UK on Lunar New Year 2027, or Singapore, Hong Kong and Poland on Lunar New Year 2027. Each holiday has a short card on what it is about and what you could say.