Tết Nguyên Đán: the holiday rule, the 2027 dates and what official bodies tell travellers

The short answer

Tết Nguyên Đán is the Lunar New Year, which the national tourism authority calls Vietnam's most significant celebration, and the length of its public holiday is set in two layers.[4] The Labour Code gives workers five paid days off for Tết and lets the Prime Minister fix which days they are each year.[1] For 2027, the government approved on 2 October 2026 a seven-day break, which its own newspaper reports as Thursday 4 February to Wednesday 10 February 2027 for public employees.[3][2] For a traveller, the national tourism authority's warnings matter as much as the dates: many businesses close, and transport and hotels are under heavy demand around the holiday.[5][4]

What Tết is

The national tourism authority's site calls Tết the most significant celebration in Vietnam, when families reunite and honour their ancestors, and describes it as marking the start of spring in the Vietnamese calendar.[4] It falls in January or February of the Gregorian calendar, and New Year's Eve is the last day of the twelfth lunar month, the 30th in a full month or the 29th in a short one.[6] The same guide describes weeks of preparation: cleaning and decorating, kumquat trees and peach blossom, the sticky rice cake bánh chưng, and lì xì, red envelopes of lucky money given by elders to the young.[4]

How the holiday is set

The rule is in Article 112 of the 2019 Labour Code, Law 45/2019/QH14, published on the government's legal-document portal. It lists "Tết Âm lịch: 05 ngày", five days for the Lunar New Year, among the paid public holidays, and says the Prime Minister decides the specific days each year. Article 111 adds that a weekly rest day falling on a holiday is made up on the next working day. Article 112 also gives foreign workers in Vietnam one extra day for their own traditional new year and one for their national day.[1] These are the 2019 text's provisions; XTOUR has not checked whether the article has been amended since.

The arithmetic explains a common confusion. The tourism authority's guide says the public holiday "may only run for one week".[4] The law says five days.[1] Both can be true in the same year: XTOUR's reading of the 2027 dates below is that 4 to 10 February spans five weekdays and the weekend between them, so a five-day holiday becomes a seven-day break.

The 2027 holiday

Letter 10065/VPCP-KGVX from the Office of the Government, dated 2 October 2026, conveys Deputy Prime Minister Phạm Thị Thanh Trà's agreement to the Ministry of Home Affairs' proposal for seven days off at Tết 2027, and asks the Minister of Home Affairs to notify administrative bodies, enterprises and workers as the rules provide. The letter itself gives no calendar dates.[2]

The government's online newspaper, reporting the letter the same day, gives them: public employees are off from Thursday 4 February 2027, the 28th day of the twelfth lunar month of the year Bính Ngọ, to Wednesday 10 February 2027, the 5th day of the first lunar month of Đinh Mùi.[3] Counting back from the 5th day, XTOUR's reading is that the first day of the new year falls on Saturday 6 February 2027.

The schedule is stated for public employees. Neither the letter nor the report says that every private business, shop or attraction closes for those seven days, and XTOUR does not know which will open.

What the tourism authority tells travellers

The national tourism authority's site gives the practical warnings, in a guide written for the 2021 holiday and in its FAQ.[5][4]

• Celebrations begin three days before the Lunar New Year and last a few days after, and the guide suggests avoiding travel around Vietnam then, as transport centres overflow and tickets can sell out.[4]
• Because people return to their home towns, demand for bus, train and plane tickets and hotel rooms is heavy; the guide advises booking far ahead if you must travel.[4]
• Businesses and restaurants typically shut for at least the first few days, so cities are quiet, with limited dining and shopping.[4] The FAQ makes the same point for travellers short of time.[5]
• An invitation into a family home for Tết is an honour, but the guide asks visitors not to call at a Vietnamese home uninvited, because the year's first guests are specially chosen to bring luck.[4]

The guide's specific dates, a 2021 first day and that year's fireworks, are history.[4]

After Tết: the first lunar month's festivals

Two festivals XTOUR covers fall in the first lunar month. The Gióng festival at Sóc temple is held in the first lunar month, as the Gióng festival article explains, and the Cổ Loa festival begins on the 6th day of that month, as the Cổ Loa guide describes. Hội An's Nguyên Tiêu festival has its own article, and the traditions UNESCO lists for Viet Nam, the Gióng festival among them, are set out in Vietnam's intangible heritage: what UNESCO lists.

What XTOUR does not know

• Which museums, heritage sites, shops and restaurants open on each day of Tết 2027; site operators announce their own arrangements.
• XTOUR has not seen an official schedule for Tết beyond 2027 as of 11 October 2026.
• Whether the Labour Code's Tết provision has been amended since 2019.

For the rest of the year's weather and seasons, see Vietnam's seasons north to south. XTOUR's Vietnam page lists the destinations it covers.