Holidays and crowds

Why it matters

China has a handful of public holidays, and most of the country takes them on the same days. Two of them, Spring Festival in late winter and National Day in October, become week-long breaks, and hundreds of millions of people travel at once. Trains sell out, popular sights hit their daily caps, and hotel prices in tourist towns jump. None of this makes travel impossible, but a trip that overlaps one of these weeks needs booking further ahead, or a plan that goes against the flow.

How the calendar works

The law sets how many days each holiday gets: four for Spring Festival (New Year’s Eve and the first three days of the lunar year), two for Labour Day on 1 and 2 May, three for National Day, and one each for New Year’s Day, Qingming, the Dragon Boat Festival and Mid-Autumn. That is 13 days in all, since a 2024 change added New Year’s Eve and 2 May.

Each year the State Council then publishes the actual dates in a notice, and this is where it gets unusual. To turn short holidays into long runs, it moves working days onto weekends: a Saturday or Sunday next to the break becomes a normal working day, and the weekday it replaces becomes a day off. In 2026, Spring Festival ran for nine days, from 15 to 23 February, and Saturday 14 February and Saturday 28 February were working days.

The notice for the next year usually comes out in November: the 2026 schedule was published on 4 November 2025, and the 2025 one on 12 November 2024. Until the 2027 notice is out, any exact 2027 holiday dates you see online are someone’s guess. We will add them here when it is published.

The holidays, in order

• New Year’s Day, 1 January. A short break, usually joined to a weekend, with little effect on travel.
• Spring Festival, between late January and late February by the lunar calendar; 6 February in 2027. The big one: weeks of heavy travel around a week-long holiday.
• Qingming, early April; 5 April in 2027. Families visit graves. Usually a three-day weekend with busy roads and parks.
• Labour Day, from 1 May. Five days off in 2026, with crowded sights and higher hotel prices.
• Dragon Boat Festival, May or June; 9 June in 2027. Boat races in many southern cities, and a short, busy break.
• Mid-Autumn Festival, September or early October; 15 September in 2027. Mooncakes and family dinners, sometimes merged with National Day into one long break.
• National Day, 1 October. Golden Week: seven days off and the busiest domestic travel of the year.

Spring Festival

Chinese New Year falls between late January and late February, and in 2027 it is on Saturday 6 February, with New Year’s Eve on Friday 5 February. The holiday itself lasts about a week. Around it is the travel rush, chunyun (春运), which is 40 days of people going home and coming back. In 2026 it ran from 2 February to 13 March, and the government expected 540 million rail trips in that time.

What that means in practice:

• Trains around the holiday sell out within minutes. The worst days are the week before New Year’s Eve, when people head home, and the days after the holiday ends, when they all come back. Tickets go on sale 15 days ahead, so be online when sales open. Booking trains on 12306 explains how, and the waitlist option is worth using.
• The big cities empty out over the holiday itself. Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen are quieter than usual over the first few days of the new year, since so many residents have left.
• Many small shops and family-run restaurants close for several days, some for a week or more. Hotels, chains and restaurants in tourist areas mostly stay open. Expect fewer choices rather than none, and check before you go somewhere specific.
• There is a lot to see. Temple fairs (庙会), lantern shows, decorations and fireworks where they are allowed. The Lantern Festival closes the season on the fifteenth day of the new year.

Golden Week

National Day starts the October Golden Week, from 1 to 7 October. It is the year’s peak for domestic tourism. The West Lake, the Great Wall sections near Beijing, the Bund and the old towns of Pingyao and Lijiang are at their most crowded, and sights that take reservations sell out days ahead. Labour Day in May works the same way on a smaller scale.

If your dates are fixed on one of these weeks:

• Book hotels and trains as early as you can, and expect higher prices.
• Reserve timed entry to the big museums and palaces as soon as booking opens. Each place page on this site says whether it needs a reservation and how far ahead.
• Plan the famous sights for early morning, and spend the middle of the day somewhere less known: a park, a neighbourhood walk, a smaller museum.
• Choose a city that people leave rather than one they visit. Large cities with plenty to do often feel easier than small scenic towns.

The week after a holiday ends is often one of the quietest of the season, with schools and offices back at work.

Choosing when to go

Outside the holidays, weather decides the best time to visit, and it varies a lot across a country this size. Each city page lists its best months. In general, spring and autumn are the most comfortable seasons in most regions, but the holidays fall in both. If you can, aim for the weeks either side of Labour Day and Golden Week rather than the holidays themselves.

Sources

Checked in November 2026. If something has changed, tell us with the feedback buttons below.

1. State Council decision amending the national holiday rules: Spring Festival 4 days, Labour Day 2 days (Xinhua), 12 Nov 2024.
2. State Council General Office notice on the 2026 holiday schedule (Xinhua), 4 Nov 2025.
3. The 2026 Spring Festival travel rush begins: 2 February to 13 March (Xinhua), 2 Feb 2026.
4. General holidays for 2027, with the lunar festival dates (GovHK), checked Nov 2026.