Festival · 2026-11-04

Tet 2027: the holiday clock, the closures, and the seats

Lunar New Year’s Day is Saturday 6 February 2027. Civil servants are off Thursday 4 February through Wednesday 10 February. Family kitchens typically shut the first days. Trains and the quiet-direction flights are already on sale.

New Year’s Day is Saturday 6 February 2027. The civil-service holiday runs Thursday 4 February through Wednesday 10 February.

Tet is the week Vietnam goes home. Vietnam Tourism describes it as the reunion of the year: houses are cleaned, peach blossom goes up in the north and yellow apricot in the south, a kumquat tree stands in the room, bánh chưng is boiled for hours, and red lì xì envelopes pass from older hands to younger ones. The first day of the lunar year in 2027 is Saturday 6 February. The Ministry of Home Affairs pairs Thursday 4 February with the 28th of the twelfth lunar month and Wednesday 10 February with the fifth of the first lunar month, so New Year’s Eve, the last night of the old year, is Friday 5 February. The flower street in the photograph is an earlier Nguyen Hue display in Ho Chi Minh City, the street the tourism board calls the country’s largest flower show. The week before is colour. The days after midnight are the quiet ones.

The public holiday

For civil servants and public employees the clock is already printed. Notice 11483/TB-BNV of 9 October 2026 gives them seven continuous days, from Thursday 4 February through the end of Wednesday 10 February 2027. Five of those days are the statutory Tet holiday, two before the new year and three after. Two weekly rest days fall inside that stretch, so two further days are makeup. Offices are told to keep a duty roster for urgent work. That calendar covers state agencies, public-service units, and political and socio-political organisations. It is not a list of which shop is open.

Private employers

Private employers are in the same notice, and they are not handed that seven-day block. Each employer chooses one of three five-day shapes: one day at the end of the old year and four at the start of the new one, two and three, or three and two. On the lunar dates the ministry printed, those shapes land on 5 to 9 February, 4 to 8 February, or 3 to 7 February. A weekly day off that lands on the holiday is made up on the next working day, so a firm’s actual break can run longer than five. Staff must be told at least 30 days ahead. The notice encourages employers to match the civil-service week when they can. Until a workplace posts its plan, do not assume it is closed for the full public stretch.

What closes

No official 2027 list says which kitchen closes. The pattern Vietnam Tourism prints is the one to pack for: with staff gone home, businesses and restaurants typically shut for at least the first few days, dining and shopping thin out, and the big cities go quiet. Reporting from the last Tet, published by VnExpress on 31 January 2025, had the same shape. In Hanoi most food stalls had stopped by 18:00 on New Year’s Eve. In Hoi An the tailors were shut that evening, while a few well-known stalls stayed open. In Ho Chi Minh City some cafes, eateries, and convenience stores on a main street kept serving, and one visitor found restaurants she wanted still closed on the sixth day. Pagodas were the crowded rooms. The openings that report named were convenience stores, some cafes, and a few famous stalls. There is no 2027 shop list, so ask the hotel, or the stall, before you count on a meal. Banks and government counters follow the civil-service closure, so cash, a card that works, and any stamp you need are a job for before 4 February.

Trains

Trains are the seat to settle first if you want one. Individual Tet tickets opened at 08:00 on 5 September 2026 on dsvn.vn, the official ticket apps, and at stations and railway agents. Nhân Dân, reporting the railway plan that day, put the peak running period at 23 January through 25 February 2027, with about 300,000 through-tickets on 57 trains and more than 800 carriages, including the daily Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City pairs. A customer may buy at most 10 tickets one way and 10 for the return. On the railway company’s rule of 8 September 2026, a change or a return costs 30 percent of the fare on even-numbered trains from 29 January to 8 February and on odd-numbered trains from 9 to 17 February. The same 30 percent covers two shorter windows on the Hanoi to Dong Hoi section: odd-numbered trains leaving Hanoi for stations from Phu Ly to Dong Hoi on 31 January to 5 February, and even-numbered trains coming back into Hanoi from that section on 9 to 14 February. An individual ticket has to be changed or returned at least 24 hours before departure. A group ticket can be returned at least 48 hours before, and the rule does not offer a group change. Outside those dates the same notice prints a 5 percent change fee at 24 hours or more, a 10 percent return at 24 hours or more, and 20 percent if an individual ticket is returned between 4 and 24 hours ahead, with a minimum of 20,000 đồng. Under four hours, that individual ticket is not refunded. Tickets bought 10 days ahead on trips longer than 900 kilometres were advertised at 5 to 20 percent below the fare. That is an early-purchase discount. These notices do not print one figure for how far a peak fare sits above an ordinary month, and they do not say how many seats were left on 4 November.

Flights

Flights opened earlier, and the cheap printed numbers are the quiet direction, not every seat in February. The Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam reported that Vietnam Airlines Group, meaning Vietnam Airlines, Pacific Airlines, and Vasco, opened Tet sales on 25 August 2026, nearly 3.7 million seats, for a peak from 22 January to 20 February 2027. Before Tet the busy flow is from the south toward the north and the centre. After Tet it turns around. On the against-the-flow trips the authority printed starting fares from 888,000 đồng one way between Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, and from 666,000 đồng one way between Ho Chi Minh City and Da Nang, Hue, Tuy Hoa, or Quy Nhon, taxes and fees included. Vietnam Airlines’ own Tet page ties those floors to tickets bought through 24 January 2027, flying 29 January to 6 February toward Ho Chi Minh City and 12 to 21 February back the other way. They are starting fares. A peak-direction evening is not promised at that number. Vietjet put 3.1 million tickets on sale for the same 22 January to 20 February window, about 2 million of them domestic. Before Tet it advertised Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi, Vinh, Thanh Hoa, and Hai Phong from 890,000 đồng, and to Da Nang, Nha Trang, and Buon Ma Thuot from 490,000 đồng, taxes and fees not included. After Tet the reverse of those trips was also advertised from 490,000 đồng before tax. Buy on the airline’s own site or app.

Grab and buses

Grab and taxis are not on the civil-service holiday. Vietnam Tourism lists Grab for cars and motorbikes in the main cities, and a local SIM is what the app needs. The same pages say transport hubs overflow in the days before Tet, and that a bus, train, or plane ticket across the holiday should be booked far ahead and then confirmed. A 2027 Grab holiday fee was not in the notices checked for this piece. At the last Tet, the 31 January 2025 VnExpress report found the ride-hailing apps still assigning cars in Ho Chi Minh City, with a wait of about 15 to 20 minutes on New Year’s morning, because many drivers had gone home. The same report said some long-distance coaches stop for a few days. Count on a longer wait, and on a higher fare showing in the app, on the peak evenings. Do not count on a same-day intercity bus.

A February plan

If the dates can move, the easier February is the flower-market week before 4 February, or the days after offices reopen on Thursday 11 February. If the trip is the holiday itself, pick one base and walk it. Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang, Hue, and Hoi An are all cities you can stay inside once you have arrived. The hard part is the seat between them. Book the train on dsvn.vn, an official app, or at a station if that is the ride you want, and treat a peak ticket as sticky: the 30 percent deduction and the 24-hour cutoff are already published. If you fly, the against-the-flow days are the ones with the printed floors above. For the first few mornings, eat where a hotel, a chain, or a stall that has said it will open is actually serving, and leave the family alley until the stools are back. For a single address, hour, or fee that is not in these notices, confirm it locally.

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