When is Chinese New Year this year? On Wednesday, January 29, 2025, Chinese New Year, or Spring Festival (春节 – chūnjié) will mark the beginning of the year of the Wood Snake (蛇 – pronounced “shé” or “shuh” in Chinese).
The lunar new year falls on a slightly different day in January or February of each year, as it follows the Chinese lunisolar calendar, rather than the regular Gregorian calendar used in most parts of the world. For 2025, mark your calendars on January 29th!
This holiday is known as Lunar New Year, which is a term that’s more inclusive of the many East Asian cultures that celebrate it, including Koreans, Vietnamese, Tibetans, and others.
ARE YOU PREPARED FOR THE NEW YEAR?
As the Chinese New year approaches, remember to brush up on your Chinese New year greetings in Cantonese, Mandarin, or both. We have audio recordings to help you nail your pronunciations.
Also check out our detailed post on Chinese New Year Traditions for a list of DOs and DON’Ts to start the new year on the right foot!
More On the Chinese zodiac Sign for 2025
The Chinese zodiac sign of the Snake represents wisdom, intelligence, refinement, elegance, and renewal among the Chinese. The Snake is the sixth animal in the 12-year cycle of the Chinese zodiac, following the Dragon and preceding the Horse.
During this year, it’s believed that qualities associated with the Snake, like wisdom, intuition, and transformation, will be particularly noteworthy.
People may be encouraged to embrace change, trust their instincts, and approach challenges with patience and careful planning.
Predictions for the Year of the Wood Snake 2025:
- It may be a year for personal growth, spiritual development, and honing one’s intuition.
- In business and personal life, it could be a good year for careful preparation and strategic thinking, hallmarks of the Snake’s wisdom.
- The flexibility of Wood combined with the Snake’s intuition might make it an excellent year for adapting to change and finding innovative solutions to long-standing problems.
Hopefully, the year of the Wood Snake will be a transformational and auspicious year of progress for everyone!
Chinese New year Dates
Again, Chinese New Year dates are dictated by the Chinese lunisolar calendar, so it is celebrated on a different date in January or February each year.
The following table gives you a quick glance at Chinese New Year dates for the next 12 year cycle of the Chinese zodiac (as well as recent years). For more information on the Chinese Zodiac, see our post on Chinese Zodiac signs.
Take note that while the dates below mark the start of the new year, the celebration actually begins on New Year’s Eve, the night before, when families gather for a big New Year’s Eve dinner, or nián yèfàn (年夜饭).
| Year | Chinese New Year Date | Chinese Zodiac Sign |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | January 22 (Sunday) | Rabbit |
| 2024 | February 10 (Saturday) | Dragon |
| 2025 | January 29 (Wednesday) | Snake |
| 2026 | February 17 (Tuesday) | Horse |
| 2027 | February 6 (Saturday) | Goat |
| 2028 | January 26 (Wednesday) | Monkey |
| 2029 | February13 (Tuesday) | Rooster |
| 2030 | February 3 (Sunday) | Dog |
| 2031 | January 23 (Thursday) | Pig |
| 2032 | February 11 (Wednesday) | Rat |
| 2033 | January 31 (Monday) | Ox |
| 2034 | February 19 (Sunday) | Tiger |
| 2035 | February 8 (Thursday) | Rabbit |
What is Chinese New Year?
The holiday we sometimes call Chinese New Year in English is known as chūnjie in Chinese, or Spring Festival.
There are similar holidays in other East Asian cultures, though they are culturally unique with their own practices and traditions. Thus, the broader term for this collection of holidays is Lunar New Year. It’s the biggest holiday of the year for many people across Asia.
Lunar New Year falls on January 29, 2025. In Chinese culture, we will gear up for a big New Year’s Eve dinner on the evening of Tuesday, January 28, 2025.
For many, Chinese New Year represents more than just the turning of a calendar page. It’s a time of renewal and fresh beginnings. The festival embodies the Chinese culture’s emphasis on family, tradition, and prosperity.
We prepare symbolic foods, which represent wishes for health and longevity, prosperity, family togetherness, happiness/sweetness/laughter, and progress.
Everyone wears red, a lucky color, and visits family and friends with auspicious gifts of oranges and other fruits (except pears, which represent separation!), flowers/plants, candies, and special food items like sweet rice cakes, taro cakeor turnip cake.
Adults (more specifically, married adults) give out red envelopes (hóngbāo) filled with lucky money to children and elders, and everyone enjoys fireworks, parades, banquets, and brightly lit lanterns at night.
Start off the Chinese New Year right with a symbolic dish like Money Bag Dumplings. They’re fun to make, delicious, and could bring you good fortune in 2025!
How Long Does Chinese New Year Last?
In China, it is a more than two-week-long celebration. It starts with New Year’s Eve and ends with the Lantern Festival, known in China as 元宵节 (yuánxiāo jié), on the 15th day of the year.
Officially, it is a 7-day public holiday in China. Businesses and schools close, giving people a chance to travel to their home towns and villages to be with family.
Everyone enjoys eating, drinking, cooking, visiting family and friends, and catching up on things that happened in the past year. On these visits, it’s all about exchanging good wishes, red envelopes, and of course, enjoying delicious traditional foods together.
When is the year of the Snake?
The Chinese Zodiac is a repeating 12-year cycle. The last time it was the year of the Snake, it was 2013.
Recent Snake Years include: 2013, 2001, 1989, 1977, 1965, 1953, 1941, 1929, and 1917.
(Though technically, if you were born in January or February, you could’ve been born in the prior lunisolar year, the year of the Dragon. Use this calculator to enter your birthdate and get your correct sign. Learn more about what your sign is on our Chinese Zodiac post.)
In 2013, it was the Year of the Water Snake. 2025 will be the Year of the Wood Snake.
You may know the Chinese Zodiac consists of twelve animal signs, but each year also includes one of the five elements.
Each of those elements has associated meanings. Here they are on a rather simplistic level:
- Wood: creativity, imagination
- Fire: passion, adventure
- Earth: patience, stability
- Metal: persistence, ambition
- Water: agility, eloquence
Each combination of animal and element occurs every 60 years! The last year of the wood snake was in 1965.
The Wood element imbues the Snake’s natural characteristics with additional qualities. Wood represents growth, vitality, and flexibility, creativity, and idealism, potentially making Wood Snakes visionary and innovative personalities!
What is the Lantern Festival?
On the 15th day of the Chinese New Year, the Spring Festival holiday comes to an end with the Yuan Xiao or Lantern Festival (元宵节 / yuán xiāo jié).
The most traditional food of the Lantern Festival is called yuán xiāo, or tángyuánwhich is a glutinous rice ball usually filled with sweet bean, peanut or sesame paste.
They also come in smaller sizes without filling, mixed with fruit and Jiu Nianga sweet fermented rice (check out Judy’s recipe for an example)
Savory tang yuan are also popular around the Winter Solstice in December!
When is the Lantern Festival In 2025?
The Lantern festival marks the first full moon of the new lunar year. It will be on Wednesday, February 12, 2025. Eating tang yuan is a must! If you’re close to your local Chinatown, be sure to visit and watch the final dragon and lion dances of the new year and enjoy the fireworks.
Light your lanterns, and hang them outside on the night of the festival. If you’re not making your own tang yuan, be sure to buy them early from your local Chinese market. They may sell out!
Check out our full collection of Chinese New Year recipes to plan your menu for the holiday ahead!
