When is Chinese New Year?
The next one falls on Saturday, February 6, 2027, beginning the year of the yin fire goat.
Every date below is computed from the moon and the solstice, not copied from a table — which is why they are right in the awkward years as well as the easy ones.
Why it moves
Twelve lunar months come to about 354 days, eleven short of a solar year. Left alone the calendar would drift a month every three years and the new year would wander into summer, so a leap month is inserted whenever one is needed to keep the winter solstice in the eleventh month. The new year is then the second new moon after that solstice — or the third, when a leap month falls in between.
That is the rule this page implements, rather than the folk version of it. The difference shows up in years like 2015, where the solstice and a new moon fell on the same day in China: counted the easy way, the new year comes out a month early.
Dates are shown in your own timezone, and the calendar itself is reckoned in China Standard Time — so a new year late at night there is still that day here. Find your own animal against these boundaries, free.