Spring Festival (Chinese New Year)

When it is

Spring Festival (春节, Chūn Jié) falls on the first day of the lunar new year — typically late January or February. The official public holiday is 7 days, but the social slowdown extends 15 days from new year's eve to Lantern Festival.

Recent dates: - 2025: 29 January - 2026: 17 February - 2027: 6 February - 2028: 26 January

What happens

Family reunion: hundreds of millions of Chinese travel home for the holiday — the largest annual human migration in the world. Trains and flights book out 30+ days ahead.
New Year's Eve dinner (年夜饭): the family meal on the eve. Traditional dishes vary by region — fish (yú, homonym for 'surplus'), dumplings in the north, glutinous rice cakes (nian gao) in the south, eight-treasure rice.
Fireworks at midnight, where permitted. Most major cities have banned consumer fireworks since the 2000s; rural areas still light them.
Red envelopes (红包, hóng bāo): cash gifts from elders to children, employers to staff, hosts to guests. Typically ¥100–¥1,000+ in cash; digital red envelopes via WeChat for distance giving.
Door couplets and decorations: red papers with auspicious calligraphy on doorways; fú (福, 'blessing') character pasted upside-down (homonym for 'arrives').
TV gala (春晚): CCTV's New Year's Eve broadcast, watched by hundreds of millions.

Travel impact

The two weeks around Spring Festival are the worst time to travel in mainland China:

Train and flight tickets sell out 30+ days in advance and prices spike.
Tourist sights are crowded with domestic travellers (the rare moment when non-tourists are travelling in volume).
Many shops, restaurants and small businesses close — particularly in tier-3 cities and rural areas — for 3–7 days. Tier-1 city service operations stay mostly open.
Major cities are quieter than usual on the actual holiday days as residents leave for ancestral villages.

What's worth seeing

Temple fairs in major cities (Beijing's Ditan, Longtan; Shanghai's Yu Garden).
Lantern displays culminating at Lantern Festival.
Lion and dragon dances in the streets, particularly in Cantonese-influenced cities.
The TV gala — surreal but culturally significant.

What to avoid

The Forbidden City and other major sights on day 1 of the new year.
Long-distance trains in either direction during the 'spring rush' window (chunyun, 春运: roughly 15 days before through 25 days after).
Booking your visa-application slot during this window — many embassies and consulates close.

Etiquette

Greeting: 新年快乐 (Xīn nián kuài lè, 'happy new year') or 恭喜发财 (Gōng xǐ fā cái, 'wishing you wealth' — Cantonese-rooted, widely used).
Hosting: bring fruit, tea, sweets if invited to a Chinese family's New Year dinner.
Red envelopes: even-number amounts only (auspicious); avoid 4 (death homonym); 6 and 8 are lucky.
Don't sweep the floor on day 1 — sweeps away luck.
Don't break crockery on day 1 — if you do, say 岁岁平安 (homonym for breaking = peace).