Here’s Why Chinese New Year Falls on Different Dates Every Year

(SPOT.ph) Chinese New Year is one of those holidays that Filipinos know is coming—but never quite on the same date twice. Some years it’s in late January, other times it stretches into February, which can make planning celebrations feel a bit unpredictable.

The reason is simple: Chinese New Year does not follow the Gregorian calendar that most of the world—including the Philippines—uses. Instead, it follows the traditional Chinese lunisolar calendar, which is guided by both the moon and the sun.

Here's how it works.

The holiday begins on the first new moon of the lunar year—which is why you'll also hear it being called the Lunar New Year. A new moon occurs when the moon sits between the Earth and the sun, making it invisible from our point of view. Because each lunar month lasts about 29.5 days, 12 lunar months total only around 354 days—about 11 days shorter than a 365-day solar year.

That’s why Chinese New Year always falls between January 21 and February 20—but never on a fixed date.

Check out how it moved over the past five years:

• February 12, 2021
• February 1, 2022
• January 22, 2023
• February 10, 2024
• January 29, 2025

You can see the pattern: it shifts earlier by roughly 10 to 11 days each year, until a leap month adjustment pushes it later again.

In the Philippines, Chinese New Year has been declared a special non-working holiday since 2012 through annual presidential proclamations, meaning government offices and most businesses suspend work while private employers follow “no work, no pay” rules unless company policy provides otherwise.

The changing date also explains why Chinese zodiac signs don’t switch on January 1. Zodiac years begin on the Chinese New Year itself. So someone born in January may still belong to the previous zodiac animal, depending on when the new moon fell that year. That’s why accurate zodiac charts always list specific cutoff dates—not just birth years.

Also read: Scrumptious Tikoy Alternatives for Gifting This Chinese New Year