Korean holidays · lunar calendar
When are Seollal
and Chuseok?
Korea's family holidays sit on the lunar calendar, so the solar date moves every year. Here are the dates for the next ten years, with the three-day holiday and any substitute day.
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Chuseok (추석) — the harvest moon
1st day of the 1st lunar month
Seollal (설날) — Korean Lunar New Year
The first day of the lunar year, and with Chuseok one of Korea's two great family holidays. Families gather in the hometown, hold the ancestral rite (차례, charye), and the young bow to their elders (세배, sebae) and receive New Year money (세뱃돈).
Everyone eats rice-cake soup (떡국, tteokguk) — by the old count, a bowl of it makes you a year older. The day before and the day after are public holidays too, three days in all.
| Year | The day | Days off | Extra day |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | Tue, Feb 17 | Feb 16–18 | — |
| 2027 | Sun, Feb 7 | Feb 6–8 | Tue, Feb 9 |
| 2028 | Thu, Jan 27 | Jan 26–28 | — |
| 2029 | Tue, Feb 13 | Feb 12–14 | — |
| 2030 | Sun, Feb 3 | Feb 2–4 | Tue, Feb 5 |
| 2031 | Thu, Jan 23 | Jan 22–24 | — |
| 2032 | Wed, Feb 11 | Feb 10–12 | — |
| 2033 | Mon, Jan 31 | Jan 30 – Feb 1 | Wed, Feb 2 |
| 2034 | Sun, Feb 19 | Feb 18–20 | Tue, Feb 21 |
| 2035 | Thu, Feb 8 | Feb 7–9 | — |
15th day of the 8th lunar month
Chuseok (추석) — the harvest moon
The full moon of the eighth lunar month, when the year's harvest is in. Families travel home, set the ancestral table with new rice and fruit, visit and tidy the family graves (성묘, seongmyo), and make half-moon rice cakes together (송편, songpyeon).
Three public holidays — the day before, the day and the day after — so the roads out of Seoul are at their fullest on the first of them.
| Year | The day | Days off | Extra day |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | Fri, Sep 25 | Sep 24–26 | — |
| 2027 | Wed, Sep 15 | Sep 14–16 | — |
| 2028 | Tue, Oct 3 | Oct 2–4 | Thu, Oct 5 |
| 2029 | Sat, Sep 22 | Sep 21–23 | Mon, Sep 24 |
| 2030 | Thu, Sep 12 | Sep 11–13 | — |
| 2031 | Wed, Oct 1 | Sep 30 – Oct 2 | — |
| 2032 | Sun, Sep 19 | Sep 18–20 | Tue, Sep 21 |
| 2033 | Thu, Sep 8 | Sep 7–9 | — |
| 2034 | Wed, Sep 27 | Sep 26–28 | — |
| 2035 | Sun, Sep 16 | Sep 15–17 | Tue, Sep 18 |
Other lunar holidays: Buddha's Birthday, Daeboreum, Dano
8th day of the 4th lunar month
Buddha's Birthday (부처님 오신 날)
Temples and streets are hung with lotus lanterns (연등) in the weeks before, and Seoul holds a lantern parade. One public holiday; from 2023 a substitute day is added when it falls on a weekend.
| Year | The day | Days off | Extra day |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | Sun, May 24 | Sun, May 24 | Mon, May 25 |
| 2027 | Thu, May 13 | Thu, May 13 | — |
| 2028 | Tue, May 2 | Tue, May 2 | — |
| 2029 | Sun, May 20 | Sun, May 20 | Mon, May 21 |
| 2030 | Thu, May 9 | Thu, May 9 | — |
15th day of the 1st lunar month
Jeongwol Daeboreum (정월 대보름)
The first full moon of the year. People crack nuts with their teeth for healthy skin and strong teeth (부럼 깨기) and eat five-grain rice (오곡밥). Not a public holiday.
| Year | The day |
|---|---|
| 2026 | Tue, Mar 3 |
| 2027 | Sun, Feb 21 |
| 2028 | Thu, Feb 10 |
| 2029 | Tue, Feb 27 |
| 2030 | Sun, Feb 17 |
5th day of the 5th lunar month
Dano (단오)
An early-summer festival: hair washed in iris water (창포물), wrestling (씨름) and swings. The Gangneung Danoje festival is on UNESCO's intangible heritage list. Not a public holiday.
| Year | The day |
|---|---|
| 2026 | Fri, Jun 19 |
| 2027 | Wed, Jun 9 |
| 2028 | Sun, May 28 |
| 2029 | Sat, Jun 16 |
| 2030 | Wed, Jun 5 |
How these dates are worked out
Each holiday is a fixed lunar date, turned into a solar date with the Korean lunar calendar published by the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI) — not the Chinese one, which now and then starts a month a day earlier or later.
Substitute days follow Korea's public-holiday regulation: for Seollal and Chuseok, when one of the three days falls on a Sunday or on another public holiday, the first working day after them is added. For Buddha's Birthday, a Saturday or Sunday counts too. The government can also add one-off holidays, which no table can know in advance.
Dates are shown in Korean time. Ancestral rites and customs vary from family to family.