Chinese New Year in Phuket: Old Town Festival, Shrines, Lanterns and Dates

Dates for 2027

Chinese New Year falls on Saturday 6 February 2027, with New Year's Eve on Friday 5 February and the start of the Year of the Goat, according to a Thailand travel guide. A Thai holiday guide describes the family reunion dinner on the 5th, street celebrations with lion dances and firecrackers on the 6th, and a quieter 7th. The Lantern Festival, on the fifteenth day of the lunar month, falls on 20 February 2027.

It is not a national public holiday, so most shops, banks and offices stay open, although many Chinese-Thai businesses and families close for a day or more. The holidays calendar shows what closes.

Two celebrations, not one

The most useful thing to know is that Phuket's public festival is usually not held on New Year's Day itself. In 2025, The Phuket News reported Chinese Thais setting up altars and performing rituals in Old Town on the morning of 29 January, which was the New Year's Day, while the municipality's festival with fireworks opened on 3 February. In 2026 the pattern repeated: the Phuket Lantern Festival opened on 11 February, and the municipal Chinese New Year festival, themed Happiness in Every Flavour, opened on 22 February and ran for about three days.

Phuket Old Town hosts both, and the Tourism Authority of Thailand's Phuket office has traditionally combined the festivities with the Old Phuket Festival, according to one travel site. If you want family ritual and shrine visits, go on the day. If you want stages, lights and food stalls, wait for the municipal dates once they are announced.

What the 2026 festival looked like

• Seven stages of cultural shows and five designated photo points around the Old Town, according to The Phuket News.
• Light-and-sound installations along the shophouse streets, and food and shopping stalls.
• More than 40 shrines taking part in ceremonies across the island, tied to the fifth anniversary of the Phuket Shrine Association, according to the same newspaper.
• Officials forecast tourism revenue of more than 600 million baht over the festive period.
• Firecrackers, which one travel site says are traditionally let off in the mornings to see out the old year.

The newspaper's report on the Lantern Festival says it turns Old Town into a sea of glowing lanterns, and another report listed it as running from 11 February to 3 March in 2026.

Planning a visit

• Old Town is compact and the main streets close to traffic in the evenings during festivals. Park outside and walk, and see the parking guide and the Old Town guide.
• Book accommodation early if you want to be in or near Old Town, because the weekend of a festival fills the town's smaller hotels.
• Early mornings are best for shrine ceremonies, and the evenings for stages and lanterns.
• Respect altars and families: ask before photographing rituals, and follow the etiquette guide.
• Check the municipality's announcements in January for the 2027 dates, since the municipal festival is organised separately from the holiday.

For other Chinese-Thai events, see the Vegetarian Festival guide, which is the island's biggest, and the festivals calendar for the whole year. For food, see the guide to eating in Old Town.