Chinese New Year Survival Guide for Expats
TL;DR — the 30-second version
Every winter, right on schedule, the city you live in starts closing in a quiet order: the noodle shop first, then the barbershop, then the pharmacy that never closes. Chinese New Year is the biggest annual shutdown in the country, and the only real surprise for expats is how early it starts.
The short answer: the holiday itself runs about a week, but the closures begin days before it. Book trains the day tickets open, stock the fridge by chuxi (New Year’s Eve), and treat the first three days as a city-wide exhale. Plan for it and it’s the best week of the year; skip it and you’re eating convenience-store noodles.
- Most small shops close through the first three days; chains like 7-Eleven, Lawson and McDonald’s mostly stay open.
- Train tickets on the official 12306 app open 15 days before departure — the popular routes go in hours.
- Meituan and Ele.me still deliver, but riders thin out and a few yuan of service fee appear per order.
Why the whole country shuts down
Spring Festival (Chun Jie) isn’t a long weekend. It’s the one stretch of the year when China’s work machine stops: the annual travel rush around it, called chunyun, moved roughly 9 billion trips in 2024, per the official tally. Factories pause for one to two weeks, offices follow the official holiday window, and the small family businesses that make a city feel alive close first.
The dates you actually need
For 2027, the first day of the new year — the Year of the Goat — falls on Saturday, February 6. The eve before, chuxi, is the real event: the reunion dinner (nianyefan), the national CCTV gala, and, in most smaller cities, fireworks that roar until 2 a.m. Big cities like Beijing and Shenzhen have banned fireworks outright, so what you hear depends on where you live.
Here’s the piece most guides skip: the official holiday window for 2027 has not been printed yet. The State Council usually releases it in autumn, around October or November, at gov.cn. Watch gov.cn, not expat forums — they’re wrong half the time.
Trains and flights: the 15-day rule
Rail tickets on the official 12306 app open 15 days before departure, and the return leg sells out first. If you’re heading out, mark the day return tickets open and buy that morning. Miss it and the app’s waitlist function (houbu) becomes your only real friend.
Flights are the opposite problem: expensive now, more expensive later. Domestic fares for late-January and early-February trips start climbing in November, so book before you think you need to. The two most punishing travel days are the two before chuxi and the final day of the official window.
The checklist we’d actually run, once each
- Food: buy three or four days ahead — shops that close do it without a notice.
- Medicine: refill prescriptions early. Pharmacies inside malls close with the mall; emergency rooms (jizhen) stay staffed, but regular clinics thin out.
- Delivery: apps work, but fewer riders means longer waits around the eve. Western chains become your safety net.
- Cash: you rarely need it, but keep a little for temple fair stalls, where the card reader sometimes “rests” too.
- Red packets (hongbao): WeChat makes it effortless. Keep amounts small and round, skip 4 (sì, which sounds like death) and lean toward 8 (bā, which sounds like fortune). Give with both hands, and say xin nian kuai le (happy new year) while you’re at it — nobody expects you to get the tones right.
Work: the bonus question nobody asks
Year-end bonuses (nianzhongjiang) are decided before the holiday, not during it. If you work for a Chinese company and haven’t heard anything by mid-December, ask in December — January is too late, because the pot is already split. Nothing gets signed during the break, so chase pending paperwork before mid-January. If you freelance, invoice early too: your client contact will vanish for a week and a half.
Quick answers
Q: What actually closes during Chinese New Year? A: Most small restaurants, barbershops, laundries and mom-and-pop shops close through the first three days of the new year. Convenience chains, Western fast food, emergency rooms and most big malls stay open, often on reduced hours.
Q: When is Chinese New Year 2027? A: The first day of the Year of the Goat is Saturday, February 6, 2027. The official holiday window gets announced by the State Council around autumn 2026 at gov.cn.
Q: How far ahead can I book train tickets? A: 12306 opens bookings 15 days before departure for nearly every route. Buy the return leg the morning it opens — it goes first.
Q: What do I do with myself for a quiet week? A: Treat it like a staycation. Streets get emptier, parks get calmer, and the big temple fairs (miaohui) are worth one afternoon each.
Sources
- China Railway 12306 — official rail ticketing and the 15-day pre-sale window: 12306.cn
- State Council of China — official holiday arrangements: gov.cn
Editorial review: EasternReset Team · Snapshot: 2026-09. Found an error? Email us.