The Mid-Autumn Festival falls on Wednesday 15 September 2027. On the lunar calendar it is the fifteenth day of the eighth month, 八月十五, the night of the full moon. Its Chinese name is 中秋 (Zhōngqiū), “mid-autumn”, and in Singapore most people simply call it the mooncake festival after the food that carries it.
This page gives the 2027 date, the customs families keep, the moon lore behind them, and a short and honest note on what the day looks like in a Ba Zi (八字 bāzì) chart.
When is the Mid-Autumn Festival in 2027
Wednesday 15 September 2027, lunar 八月十五. For comparison, the 2026 festival fell on Friday 25 September 2026, also 八月十五. The lunar date never changes; the solar date does.
The reason is the calendar itself. The traditional Chinese calendar (农历 nónglì) is lunisolar: each month begins on the new moon, so the fifteenth of any month lands on or near the full moon, and the whole sequence slides against the solar calendar from year to year. A year has 12 or 13 months, with a leap month added when the count needs one; 2026 and 2027 have no leap month. The Chinese lunar calendar page sets out how the months are counted, and the Chinese calendar page explains how the lunar months sit beside the solar terms.
This is the opposite of Qing Ming, which follows the sun and so stays near the same solar date every year. Mid-Autumn follows the moon, and the moon decides.
Customs families keep
The heart of the festival is gathering. Families come together in the evening, eat mooncakes (月饼 yuèbing), carry lanterns, drink tea and look at the moon. None of it needs much explanation, which is part of its staying power: it is a meal and a walk outside under a bright sky, done with the people who matter.
Mooncakes and the reunion theme
The mooncake is round like the full moon, and that roundness is the point. It stands for 团圆 (tuányuán), reunion: the family whole again, sitting at one table. Giving mooncakes passes that wish on to others, which is why they travel as gifts between relatives, friends, colleagues and clients rather than being eaten only at home.
In Singapore
Here the festival starts well before the night itself. Mooncake gifting runs through the weeks before the fifteenth, and lantern displays in Chinatown are a familiar part of the same weeks. On the night itself, families carry lanterns and take their tea where the moon can be seen.
Chang’e and the jade rabbit
The festival’s lore belongs to the moon. Its central figure is 嫦娥 (Cháng’é), the moon goddess, whose story is retold every Mid-Autumn. Beside her in the same moon lore is the jade rabbit, 玉兔 (yùtù).
The stories are best told the way families tell them: as part of an evening, not as doctrine. What they share with the mooncake is the same image. A full moon, round and complete, seen by everyone at once, wherever the family happens to be.
The mooncake festival in a Ba Zi chart
Ba Zi does not run on the lunar calendar. Its months change at the solar terms, so the mooncake festival is a lunar date sitting inside a solar-term month. In 2027 that month is 己酉 (Jǐ Yǒu, Yin Earth over Metal Rooster), which begins at 白露 on 8 September 2027 at 04:28. The 2027 monthly pillars list every month and its start time.
The day pillar on Wednesday 15 September 2027 is 丁酉 (Dīng Yǒu, Yin Fire over Metal Rooster). Because the day branch matches the month branch, the almanac day officer is 建 (Jiàn), Establish, whose traditional uses are starting ventures, taking office and planning, with ground-breaking and burial avoided. The day clashes Rabbit. In 2026 the festival day was 壬寅 (Rén Yín, Yang Water over Wood Tiger) in the 丁酉 month, with officer 执 (Zhí), Initiate.
That is all a festival day can tell you. The pillar and officer are the same for everyone on the island, so they say very little about any one person. What a day means for you depends on how its pillar meets your own chart. You can check any date’s officer in today’s Chinese calendar or read how the officers work on the Tong Shu page. Anyone born in this month can read more on being born in the You month.
For the words to go with the mooncakes, see our list of Mid-Autumn Festival wishes in Chinese and English.
Keeping the festival simple
The mooncake festival asks for very little: a table, a moon, the people you would want at both. The other lunar observances of 2027 run on the same calendar, including Hungry Ghost month a few weeks earlier, and the dates are worth noting early if family members travel home for them.
See how the 2027 months and days meet your own pillars: plot your chart free with the Ba Zi calculator.