When Is Chinese New Year?

Because the date is astronomical, the countries of East and Southeast Asia that follow the lunar calendar almost always land on the same first day. What each government then does with it is a policy decision, and that is where the calendars diverge. Mainland China builds a block of eight or nine consecutive days and claws back two weekend days as make-up workdays. Vietnam does something similar for Tết without the make-up days. South Korea gives a tidy three days centred on the new year, adding a substitute day whenever one falls on a weekend.

The city-states are the other extreme. Singapore gives two days, Malaysia two federal days (some states add a third), and the Philippines a single "special non-working day" on which employers may still open. Hong Kong and Macau sit in the middle with three days that start on the first day of the year, not the eve — which is why a Hong Kong office is still fully staffed on the night of the reunion dinner.

The lunar new year begins on the second new moon after the winter solstice, computed for the 120°E meridian. A lunar year of twelve months is about eleven days shorter than a solar year, so the date drifts earlier until a leap month is inserted and it jumps back. That is the whole reason it can be 29 January one year and 17 February the next.

The new moon itself is a single instant, but a calendar has to file it under a day, and each country files it in its own time zone: UTC+8 for China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and most of Southeast Asia, UTC+9 for Korea, UTC+7 for Vietnam. When the instant falls between two of those midnights the calendars split. That is why Seollal 2027 is 7 February while Chinese New Year 2027 is the 6th. Every row in the tables above is dated from that country’s own official calendar, so the split is shown rather than smoothed away.

Treat the published holiday block as the floor, not the ceiling. Mainland factories commonly stop for two to three weeks around the official break, banks in Greater China clear nothing for the duration, and intercity transport is booked out for days on either side. If you need a hard cut-off, work backwards from the eve rather than from the first official day off.