Chinese Festival Date Finder
Find the Gregorian dates of major Chinese festivals and solar terms for any year. Handy for overseas Chinese planning reunions and holidays.
Enter a year to see festival dates.
Festivals follow the lunar calendar
Traditional Chinese festivals are dated by the lunisolar calendar, so their Gregorian dates shift every year. Chinese New Year falls between 21 January and 21 February, the Mid-Autumn Festival on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month, and the Dragon Boat Festival on the 5th day of the fifth. If a festival seems to move around, that is the lunar calendar at work, not an error.
The main fixed-date exception is Qingming, which is set by a solar term and falls on 4 or 5 April.
The four biggest festivals
Chinese New Year, the Spring Festival, begins on the 1st day of the first lunar month and runs for fifteen days, ending with the Lantern Festival. Qingming in early April is the day for tending family graves. The Dragon Boat Festival in the fifth lunar month commemorates the poet Qu Yuan. The Mid-Autumn Festival in the eighth lunar month is the harvest and reunion festival, when mooncakes are exchanged and the full moon is admired.
Frequently asked questions
- When is Chinese New Year?
- It falls on the second new moon after the winter solstice, which lands between 21 January and 21 February. Because it is set by the lunisolar calendar, the exact date differs every year — select a year to see the Gregorian date.
- Why do Chinese festival dates change every year?
- Traditional festivals follow the lunar calendar, which runs about eleven days shorter than the Gregorian year and adds a leap month roughly every three years to stay in step with the seasons. That is why a festival can be weeks earlier one year than the last.
- What are the 24 solar terms?
- They are the 24 points dividing the sun’s apparent path into 15-degree segments, marking seasonal changes such as the Start of Spring and the Winter Solstice. Unlike lunar festivals, solar terms fall on nearly the same Gregorian dates each year.
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