When Is Chinese New Year? Lunar New Year Date for Any Year

Find the date of Chinese (Lunar) New Year for any year from 1900 to 2100, with the weekday, zodiac animal and element, a countdown and a 12-year table.

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How the date of Chinese New Year is set

Chinese New Year is the first day of the first month of the Chinese lunisolar calendar. Each month starts on the day of a new moon, and the months are kept in step with the seasons by the 24 solar terms. The rule that places New Year is simple to state: the eleventh month must contain the winter solstice, and New Year is normally the second new moon after that solstice. In a year with a leap eleventh or twelfth month it becomes the third, as happened in 2033, when New Year fell on January 31.

Because a new moon can happen at any hour, the calendar fixes a reference clock. Since 1929 China has used the 120°E meridian, which is China Standard Time (UTC+8). A new moon at 23:30 in Beijing starts the month that day; the same instant is already the next calendar day further east and the previous day in the Americas. Communities worldwide still celebrate on the date set by the Chinese calendar rather than recalculating for their own time zone.

  • Earliest possible date: January 21.
  • Latest possible date: February 20 (1985 was the latest recent example).
  • Typical gap between New Years: 354 days in a 12-month year and 384 days in a 13-month (leap) year.

Where these dates come from and the 1900–2100 range

This calculator uses a lookup table of Gregorian dates for every Lunar New Year from 1900 to 2100. The table follows the official reckoning published by the Purple Mountain Observatory and the Hong Kong Observatory, and every entry was cross-checked against an independent calculation of the new moons in China Standard Time using Jean Meeus's lunar algorithms. The only year where the simple UTC+8 calculation disagrees is 1916, when China still kept Beijing local mean time and the official date is February 3 rather than February 4.

Outside 1900 to 2100 the calculator shows a message instead of guessing. Dates far in the past depend on which historical calendar reform applied, and dates beyond 2100 depend on how future authorities handle new moons that fall within minutes of midnight. A lookup table with a stated range is more honest than a formula that silently drifts.

Planning around the holiday

The celebration is longer than one day. The reunion dinner is held on New Year's Eve, the day before the date shown, and the festive season traditionally closes with the Lantern Festival on the fifteenth day of the first month, which is always 14 days after New Year. For 2027 that means a reunion dinner on February 5, New Year on Saturday, February 6, and the Lantern Festival on February 20.

  • Travel: Chunyun, the travel rush in China, runs for about 40 days around the holiday, so flights and trains sell out weeks ahead.
  • Business: mainland China's statutory holiday is several days long, and factories often close for two weeks, which affects shipping schedules.
  • Schools and events: many U.S. school districts with large Asian American communities, including New York City public schools, close on Lunar New Year.

Zodiac animal, element and the 60-year cycle

Each lunar year pairs one of 12 animals with one of five elements in yin or yang form, giving a 60-year cycle of stem-branch names. 2026 is Bing-Wu, the Yang Fire Horse; 2027 is Ding-Wei, the Yin Fire Goat. The animal changes on Lunar New Year in popular usage, so a baby born on February 5, 2027 is still a Fire Horse.

  • Different boundary in some traditions: Four Pillars (BaZi) astrology starts the year at Lichun, the start-of-spring solar term around February 4, not at New Year.
  • Not every culture uses the same animals: Vietnam's Tết uses the Cat instead of the Rabbit and the Buffalo instead of the Ox, and Vietnam's calendar is based on UTC+7, so Tết occasionally falls one day or even a month away from Chinese New Year (as in 1985).

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about the When Is Chinese New Year? Lunar New Year Date for Any Year

Chinese New Year 2027 is on Saturday, February 6, 2027. It begins the Year of the Fire Goat (Ding-Wei). New Year's Eve and the reunion dinner are on Friday, February 5, and the Lantern Festival is on February 20.

Sources & References

Gregorian-Lunar Calendar Conversion Table

Official conversion tables used to verify Lunar New Year dates.
→Source: Hong Kong Observatory

The Chinese Calendar

Rules for month starts, the winter-solstice month and leap months; the 1929 switch to the 120°E meridian.
→Source: Helmer Aslaksen, National University of Singapore

Astronomical Algorithms (2nd ed.), chapter 49: Phases of the Moon

New moon algorithm used to cross-check every table entry in UTC+8.
→Source: Jean Meeus, Willmann-Bell

Rules for the Chinese Calendar

Month and New Year rules, the 1929 switch to UTC+8 and historical edge cases such as 1916.
→Source: Yuk Tung Liu, University of Illinois

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