Gong Xi Fa Cai · Singapore
Chinese New Year 2027
When CNY falls in Singapore, the zodiac year, the public holidays, and the fifteen days of festival that follow.
Year of the Goat
Saturday, 6 February 2027 · 146 days away
The calendar
Two days off, fifteen days of festival
Singapore gazettes the first two days of Chinese New Year as public holidays. The wider festival runs for fifteen days, from the reunion dinner on the eve to Chap Goh Mei, the fifteenth night. The zodiac year turns over on the first of those two days, not on 1 January, so a birthday in January or early February belongs to the animal before this one. Check a birth date against the real boundary.
Chinese New Year
147dSaturday, 6 February 2027
Chinese New Year
148dSunday, 7 February 2027
Chinese New Year (Observed)
149dMonday, 8 February 2027
The fifteen days
Which of the fifteen days Singapore actually keeps
Every calendar tells you the festival runs fifteen days, then stops there. Only a handful are kept here, and each one has something specific attached to it. What follows tracks Culturepaedia, the Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre reference on the festival.
The eve
Reunion dinner, and staying up
The eve is not a public holiday. Families gather for the reunion dinner and stay up late, which is believed to bless the elders with longevity. The food splits by dialect group: Hakka households make caiban, vegetable dumplings.
Day 1
Visiting, oranges, ang bao
The first gazetted day off. People dress in an auspicious colour and visit relatives, exchanging mandarin oranges in pairs. Married people give ang bao to unmarried younger relatives, in even amounts.
Day 2
Kainian, and going back to the wife’s parents
The second gazetted day off, known as kainian, the opening of the year. A pair of oranges and a red packet are set on the floor, swept towards the door and back, then picked up, to sweep out what is left of the old year without sweeping out the money. The day is traditionally set aside for married women to go back to their parents for a meal.
Day 3
Red Mouth Day, when nobody calls on anybody
Chikou ri. Arguments are said to come easily on this day, so many households deliberately schedule no visits at all. Worth checking against the calendar, because in some years the third day is the one that carries your day in lieu.
Day 4
Back to work
By the fourth day most Chinese businesses reopen. That, rather than the two gazetted days, is the honest answer to how long the small shops stay shut.
Day 7
Renri, everybody’s birthday
The day human beings were created, so everyone turns a year older together. This is the yusheng day: the raw-fish salad is tossed and the auspicious phrases called over it. Teochew families eat a dish of seven vegetables, usually mustard greens, kailan, leek, Chinese cabbage, chard, spring greens and Chinese celery.
Day 9
Bai Tian Gong, the Hokkien new year
The Jade Emperor’s birthday, and the largest of the fifteen for Hokkien families. Offerings go up with whole stalks of sugarcane at the centre, burnt afterwards in thanks. The custom traces to a Ming-dynasty account of villagers in Fujian who hid from pirates in the sugarcane fields.
Day 15
Chap Goh Mei
The fifteenth night, also called the Lantern Festival or yuanxiao jie. It closes the festival.
Nothing after the second day is gazetted, so from the third day the office calendar and the festival calendar part company. The festival keeps going. Your leave does not.
Open and closed
What shuts, and for how long
Two days are gazetted and that is the whole of the legal answer. Government services and most offices observe those two public holidays; nothing after them is a holiday, so the third day is a normal working day unless a day in lieu happens to land on it.
Small businesses run to the festival calendar instead. Most Chinese businesses reopen on the fourth day, per Culturepaedia, which is one day later than the days off. Family-run shops, coffee shops and hawker stalls are the ones this describes.
There is no central list of which stalls close. NEA publishes the hawker centre, not the stalls inside it, so the only reliable check is the stall’s own notice or its posted hours. If you are eating out on the first two days, plan on the hawker centre being thin.
While it is on
The three things that actually run
All three move with the festival, so all three are only confirmed late in the preceding year. Check the organiser before you plan around any of them.
River Hongbao, at Gardens by the Bay
Free admission, lantern sets, nightly performances and fireworks. The 2026 edition ran 15 to 24 February, opening at 6.30pm on the first two nights and 2.30pm after that, per Gardens by the Bay. Dates for the next edition go up on riverhongbao.sg.
The Chinatown light-up and street market
Run by the Kreta Ayer community, which publishes the light-up and street-market dates on chinatownfestivals.sg closer to the time.
Chingay
The People’s Association parade, and it is held after the new year rather than on it. Chingay 2026 ran on 27 and 28 February, ten days after the first day of the festival, per chingay.gov.sg.
Good to know
Chinese New Year 2027 questions
When is Chinese New Year (CNY) 2027 in Singapore?
CNY 2027 falls on Saturday, 6 February 2027. Singapore gazettes the first two days of the festival as public holidays.
Which days are public holidays for Chinese New Year 2027?
The gazetted public holidays are Saturday, 6 February 2027; Sunday, 7 February 2027; Monday, 8 February 2027.
Is Chinese New Year a public holiday in Singapore in 2027?
Yes. Chinese New Year is the only Singapore public holiday that runs for two days rather than one, and both are on MOM's list. Employees covered by the Employment Act get them as paid days off.
Is Chinese New Year 2027 a long weekend in Singapore?
Yes. The public holidays give most employees a 3-day long weekend, from Saturday, 6 February 2027 to Monday, 8 February 2027.
Why is Monday, 8 February 2027 a public holiday?
One of the two Chinese New Year public holidays falls on a Sunday. Under section 4(2) of the Holidays Act 1998, that makes the next day a public holiday too, so Monday, 8 February 2027 is a public holiday in lieu. Whether it becomes a paid day off for you depends on your rest day, which MOM sets out on its public holiday page.
What zodiac year is 2027?
Chinese New Year 2027 begins the Year of the Goat, more precisely the Fire Goat. The Chinese sexagenary cycle pairs each of the twelve animals with one of five elements, repeating every 60 years.
How long does Chinese New Year last?
The two gazetted days off are only the start. The festival runs for fifteen days, from the reunion dinner on the eve to Chap Goh Mei (元宵), the fifteenth night.
Beyond the new year
Chinese festivals in Singapore
Read
Guides for the season
When Is Chinese New Year in Singapore? Dates to 2036 and the Rule Behind Them
Chinese New Year 2027 is Saturday 6 February, 2028 is Wednesday 26 January. The date is not random: it steps back about eleven days a year, then jumps forward about nineteen when a thirteenth lunar month is added. Here are the dates to 2036, the arithmetic, and which of them Singapore has actually gazetted.
Chinese New Year Customs in Singapore: Whose New Year Are You Visiting?
Singapore keeps five Chinese New Year calendars at once. Hokkien households build the season around the ninth day, Teochew households around the seventh, and Cantonese and Hakka households start a week before the eve. How to tell which one you are visiting, and what to do at the door.
The Reunion Dinner: One Night, Two Seatings
The reunion dinner is on Chinese New Year's Eve, which in 2027 is Friday 5 February, a working day. Who sits at the table, why the eve is rationed into fixed seatings, and the five ways Singapore families get around it.
Ang Bao in Singapore: How Much to Give, and Why the Rate Tables Disagree
There is no ang bao market rate in Singapore. Three published 2026 rate guides disagree by more than ten times for the same relative. Here is what actually holds, what varies, and why the crisp-new-notes rule is the one MAS has spent years asking you to drop.
Yusheng and Lo Hei: Who Invented It, and Why No Two Phrase Lists Agree
Singapore and Malaysia both claim yusheng, and both have a case, because they are claiming different things. The toss itself had no author: diners built the script, which is why the phrases differ everywhere you go.
What's Open During Chinese New Year in Singapore?
One rule predicts almost all of it: places with staff on a payroll stay open, places where the owner is the labour close for as long as the owner chose. That is why a supermarket keeps 156 of 168 stores running on day one while the hawker centre next door sits half shut for a week.
Year of the Horse 2026: The Two Dates It Starts On
The Horse year began on 4 February 2026 by the solar reckoning and on 17 February by the lunar one. Both are in use in Singapore, which is why the Li Chun bank queues came first, and why the Goat year that follows on 6 February 2027 contains no start of spring at all.