Lunar New Year
Compare Chinese New Year, Korean Seollal, Vietnamese Tết, and Mongolian Tsagaan Sar by year, with brief cultural notes and source links.
Chinese, Sat, February 6, 2027
Family reunion dinner, red envelopes, temple visits, and first-day greetings.
Lì xì lucky money, family altars, flower markets, and first-footing visits.
Buuz feast, formal elder greetings, family visits, and white foods for renewal.
Chinese New Year, Korean Seollal, and Vietnamese Tết usually fall on the same Gregorian date because each marks the first day of the first month in an East Asian lunisolar calendar. Months follow the moon, while leap months and solar terms keep the year tied to the seasons. That is why the holiday moves through late January and February instead of staying fixed like 1 January.
The cultural meaning is not identical even when the date is shared. Seollal centers on Sebae greetings to elders, Tết includes lì xì lucky money and first visits, and Chinese Spring Festival customs vary by region but often include reunion dinners and red envelopes. Vietnam also uses a related zodiac with local differences such as Cat instead of Rabbit.
Mongolian Tsagaan Sar follows the Mongolian Buddhist lunisolar calendar, so it can coincide with the same new moon or sit one or more days later, and in some years it is later by a lunar-month-style offset. Its first days are built around family visits, formal greetings, white foods, and a large Buuz feast. For long-range planning, treat Mongolian dates as calendar dates to recheck close to travel or official holiday publication.
In 2026 the table shows Chinese New Year, Seollal, and Tết all on 17 February, opening a Year of the Horse, with Tsagaan Sar following on 18 February, one day later. Two years on the picture changes completely: in 2028 the three East Asian holidays fall on 26 January while Tsagaan Sar lands on 26 February. Both patterns are normal. The shared dates come from calendars tracking the same new moon, and the Mongolian offset comes from different month rules and leap-month decisions.
The decade also shows how far the holiday can wander. The earliest first day in this table is 23 January 2031 and the latest is 19 February 2034, so any planning that involves this holiday needs to keep roughly four weeks of the calendar open until the year in question is known.
China, Korea, and Vietnam assign the same twelve-year animal cycle to each new year, but Vietnam replaces two animals. The table below picks out the years in this range where the labels agree and where they diverge.
| Year | Chinese and Korean zodiac | Vietnamese zodiac |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | Horse | Horse |
| 2033 | Ox | Buffalo |
| 2035 | Rabbit | Cat |
All four countries declare multi-day public holidays around the new year, and the exact bridge days are announced by each government, often only months in advance. Treat the first day in this table as the anchor date, then check the official announcement for the full closure window before booking travel, setting delivery deadlines, or scheduling releases with teams in the region. Factories, offices, and logistics networks in China and Vietnam commonly pause for the surrounding week, so lead times stretch well beyond the holiday itself.
Chinese New Year is one Lunar New Year among several. Korean Seollal and Vietnamese Tết mark the same lunisolar new year and usually share the date, while Mongolian Tsagaan Sar follows its own calendar and can fall on a different day entirely.
Lunisolar months follow the moon, and leap months keep the year tied to the seasons. Across 2026 to 2035 the first day ranges from 23 January in 2031 to 19 February in 2034, and every year lands somewhere inside that window.
The Mongolian Buddhist calendar uses different month rules and leap-month decisions. In 2026 Tsagaan Sar is only one day after Chinese New Year, but in 2028 it falls on 26 February, a full month after the 26 January date shared by the other three traditions.
The Vietnamese zodiac swaps two animals: the Cat replaces the Rabbit and the Buffalo replaces the Ox. So 2035 opens a Rabbit year in China and Korea but a Cat year in Vietnam, and 2033 is an Ox year in one tradition and a Buffalo year in the other.
Chinese dates follow the Hong Kong Observatory almanac, Korean dates follow KASI (the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute), Vietnamese dates come from official government publications, and Mongolian dates come from government announcements and published holiday calendars. Each row links to its sources.