Chinese Lunar Calendar 2026–2027: Month Start Dates

The Chinese lunar calendar, 农历 (nónglì), is the calendar behind Chinese New Year, the Lantern Festival, Mid-Autumn and the lunar birthdays many Singapore families still keep. Strictly it is lunisolar: the months follow the moon, while the year is kept in step with the sun. This page lists when every lunar month of 2026 and 2027 begins, how long each one runs, and how the New Year date is fixed.

It also explains the point where most people go wrong: Ba Zi (八字 bāzì) does not use these lunar months at all. For the wider picture of how the lunar months, the solar terms and the day pillars fit together, start with the Chinese calendar overview.

How a lunar month begins

Each lunar month starts on the day of the new moon. That day is 初一 (chūyī), the first of the month, and the count runs on from there. Because the moon’s cycle does not fit a whole number of days, a lunar month is either 29 or 30 days long, never anything else.

Twelve such months come to noticeably fewer days than a solar year. Left alone, the festivals would drift backwards through the seasons. The calendar corrects this with a leap month.

Leap months and why 2026 and 2027 have none

A year in the Chinese lunar calendar has either 12 or 13 months. The extra one is the leap month, 闰月 (rùnyuè), and the rule for placing it is tied to the sun. The year is also divided by the 24 solar terms (节气 jiéqì), and twelve of them are the major terms, 中气 (zhōngqì). A lunar month that contains no 中气 becomes the leap month and repeats the number of the month before it.

Neither 2026 nor 2027 needs one. Both lunar years run a plain twelve months, as the tables below show. When you see a calendar listing a 闰 month, that is the same rule at work in a different year, not a separate system.

Chinese lunar calendar 2026 and 2027: month start dates

The dates below are the first day of each lunar month in Singapore time (UTC+8), which matches Beijing time, so a Singapore calendar and a mainland almanac agree on every date.

Lunar year 2026 (丙午, Horse): no leap month

Lunar year 2027 (丁未, Goat): no leap month

To read a lunar date from the table, count forward from the month’s first day. Today, 12 October 2026, sits in month 9, which began on 10 October, so it is 九月初三, the third day of the ninth month. The eleventh month is often called 冬月 (dōngyuè) and the twelfth 腊月 (làyuè): 22 December 2026 is 冬月十四, and 4 February 2027 is 腊月廿八, two days before the New Year. In 2027 the ninth day of the ninth month falls on Friday 8 October, the Double Ninth Festival, whose Chung Yeung customs we explain separately.

How Chinese New Year is set

Chinese New Year, 春节 (Chūnjié), is the first day of the first lunar month, 正月初一 (zhēngyuè chūyī). It usually falls on the second new moon after the winter solstice, which is why its Western date moves from year to year.

The 2027 date works out like this. The winter solstice falls on 22 December 2026. Lunar month 11 had already begun on 9 December, so the first new moon after the solstice opens month 12 on 8 January 2027. The second opens month 1 on Saturday 6 February 2027, and that is Chinese New Year. For the customs and what the Goat year means, see Chinese New Year 2027 and the 2027 Chinese zodiac.

Festival dates on the lunar calendar in 2027

Most traditional festivals are fixed to a lunar date, so you can read them straight off the 2027 table:

• Lantern Festival, 元宵 (Yuánxiāo), the fifteenth of month 1: 20 February 2027.
• Dragon Boat, 端午 (Duānwǔ), the fifth of month 5: 9 June 2027.
• Qixi, 七夕 (Qīxī), the seventh of month 7: 8 August 2027.
• The seventh lunar month, often called Hungry Ghost month, runs from 2 August to 31 August 2027, with Zhong Yuan, 中元 (Zhōngyuán), on its fifteenth day, 16 August 2027.
• Mid-Autumn, 中秋 (Zhōngqiū), the fifteenth of month 8: 15 September 2027.
• Double Ninth, 重阳 (Chóngyáng), the ninth of month 9: 8 October 2027.

Two familiar dates are not lunar at all. Qing Ming, 清明 (Qīngmíng), on 5 April 2027, and the winter solstice, 冬至 (Dōngzhì), are solar terms, which is why their Western dates barely move from year to year. The winter solstice festival page covers the second of these.

The festivals of 2027 in lunar order: the Lantern Festival (正月十五), Qing Ming (fixed by the sun), the Dragon Boat Festival (五月初五), Qixi (七月初七), the Hungry Ghost month and the Mid-Autumn festival (八月十五).

Why Ba Zi does not use the lunar month

This is the classic mistake in home-made charts. Ba Zi counts its year and months by the sun, through the solar terms, not by the lunar months above. The Ba Zi year begins at 立春 (Lìchūn), Start of Spring, which in 2027 falls at 2027-02-04 09:45, two days before Chinese New Year. Each Ba Zi month then begins at one of the twelve 节 (jié) terms, explained on the 24 solar terms page.

The gap has real consequences. Someone born on 5 February 2027 is already a Fire Goat, 丁未 (Dīng Wèi), in Ba Zi, while the lunar calendar still places them in the Horse year until New Year’s Eve. In the other direction, a baby born on the fifteenth of a lunar month is not born in the middle of a Ba Zi month; that boundary sits wherever the solar term falls. The Ba Zi calendar for 2027 lists the dates that actually change a chart, and what Ba Zi is covers the system itself.

Keep the Chinese lunar calendar for festivals and family birthdays, and use the solar terms for your chart. If you only know your lunar birthday, convert it to a Western date with the tables above first. Then see where your pillars really fall: plot your chart free with the Ba Zi calculator, which works from the solar terms for you.