China Marketing Calendar 2026: Festivals, Zodiac & Shopping Days
Every date that matters to a China marketer in one place — Chinese New Year, Qixi, Mid-Autumn, 520, 618, Double 11 — with campaign planning timelines, zodiac audience insight, and calendar export.
Where we are right now
2026: Year of the Fire Horse 火马
Chinese New Year 2026 fell on Tuesday, 17 February 2026.
Chinese New Year 2027: Saturday, 6 February 2027 — Year of the Fire Goat.
Next date on the calendar: 99 Value Shopping Festival in 0 days (9 September).
Tip: tick “Add to my shortlist” on the dates you care about, press Update my shortlist, and the export and print will cover just those.
Why China Needs Its Own Marketing Calendar
China runs on two calendars at once. National Day and Double 11 land on the same Gregorian date every year, but Chinese New Year, Qixi and Mid-Autumn Festival follow the lunisolar calendar and move by weeks — which is why a standard Western marketing calendar quietly misses the biggest consumer moments in the market.
This tool merges both systems: the fixed commercial dates (520, 618, Double 11, Double 12), the shifting lunar festivals, and the Chinese zodiac year. Then it adds the parts most calculators skip — when to actually start planning, which dates suit your industry, which dates your audience's zodiac sign makes more relevant, and which dates to stay away from entirely.
How to Use It
- Read the top strip — the current zodiac year, this year's and next year's Chinese New Year dates, and what's coming next are all there before you touch anything.
- Set your options in the gold panel: any year from 2015 to 2032, your industry, your audience's birth year, and how much lead time your team typically needs.
- Open “Show campaign plan” on any major date for a milestone timeline counted backwards from the event.
- Tick the dates you care about, press Update, then print your shortlist or download it as an .ics file — planning milestones included.
China's Shopping Festival Calendar
China's e-commerce festivals are a parallel calendar to the traditional one, and unlike the lunar festivals they sit on fixed dates every year. Double 11 (11 November) is the largest, followed by 618 (18 June), Women's Day / Goddess Day (8 March) and Double 12 (12 December). Around them cluster smaller but useful moments: 520 (20 May), 88 Member Day, 818 and the 99 Value Festival.
The critical thing for planning is that the visible date is the end of the campaign, not the start. Double 11 pre-sale typically opens around 20 October, and 618 runs roughly three weeks of warm-up before the day itself. Media inventory and KOL availability tighten weeks in advance of both, which is why the campaign timelines in the calendar above count backwards rather than forwards.
Chinese Zodiac Years at a Glance
Each Chinese zodiac year begins at Chinese New Year rather than on 1 January, and pairs an animal with one of five elements across a sixty-year cycle. Use the chart to find which years belong to which sign — useful when you are sizing an audience cohort or checking whether a group is entering its benmingnian.
| Sign | Years |
|---|---|
| Rat 鼠 | 1948, 1960, 1972, 1984, 1996, 2008, 2020, 2032 |
| Ox 牛 | 1949, 1961, 1973, 1985, 1997, 2009, 2021 |
| Tiger 虎 | 1950, 1962, 1974, 1986, 1998, 2010, 2022 |
| Rabbit 兔 | 1951, 1963, 1975, 1987, 1999, 2011, 2023 |
| Dragon 龙 | 1952, 1964, 1976, 1988, 2000, 2012, 2024 |
| Snake 蛇 | 1953, 1965, 1977, 1989, 2001, 2013, 2025 |
| Horse 马 | 1954, 1966, 1978, 1990, 2002, 2014, 2026 |
| Goat 羊 | 1955, 1967, 1979, 1991, 2003, 2015, 2027 |
| Monkey 猴 | 1956, 1968, 1980, 1992, 2004, 2016, 2028 |
| Rooster 鸡 | 1957, 1969, 1981, 1993, 2005, 2017, 2029 |
| Dog 狗 | 1958, 1970, 1982, 1994, 2006, 2018, 2030 |
| Pig 猪 | 1959, 1971, 1983, 1995, 2007, 2019, 2031 |
Frequently Asked Questions
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Chinese New Year 2027 falls on Saturday, 6 February 2027, beginning the Year of the Fire Goat. Chinese New Year 2028 falls on Wednesday, 26 January 2028, starting the Year of the Earth Monkey. The public holiday itself usually runs for around a week, and the wider Spring Festival season stretches from the Laba Festival through to the Lantern Festival roughly six weeks later.
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The Chinese zodiac year changes at Chinese New Year, not on 1 January, so early January still belongs to the previous animal. Each year pairs one of twelve animals with one of five elements — wood, fire, earth, metal and water — in a repeating sixty-year cycle, which is why the full name of a year is something like Fire Horse rather than simply Horse. Select any year in the panel above to see its animal and element.
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The four largest are Double 11 on 11 November, which is the biggest shopping event in the world; 618 on 18 June, originally JD.com's anniversary and now an all-platform mid-year sale; Women's Day on 8 March, commercially rebranded as Goddess Day and dominated by beauty and fashion; and Double 12 on 12 December, a long-tail sale skewed towards smaller merchants. Alongside these sit 520 on 20 May, 88 Member Day, 818, and the 99 Value Festival. All are fixed Gregorian dates, unlike the traditional lunar festivals.
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Chinese New Year, Qixi, Mid-Autumn Festival and the other traditional festivals follow the Chinese lunisolar calendar rather than the Gregorian one, so their Gregorian dates shift each year — Chinese New Year can fall anywhere between 21 January and 20 February. Fixed commercial dates such as Double 11 and 618 never move, because e-commerce platforms set them rather than the lunar cycle.
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Both are romance occasions, but they behave differently. 520 falls on 20 May every year and takes its name from the way 5-2-0 sounds like the Mandarin for "I love you"; it is digital-native, skews younger, and is closely tied to sending WeChat red packets of 520.00 yuan. Qixi follows the lunar calendar and lands in August, carries genuine traditional weight through the legend of the Cowherd and Weaver Girl, and drives noticeably higher basket values in jewellery, fragrance and luxury gifting. Many brands run a light social campaign for 520 and save their major spend for Qixi.
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The date 11/11 is written as four ones, which came to represent single people, and the day began as an informal anti-Valentine's celebration among university students in the 1990s. Alibaba adopted it as a shopping promotion in 2009 with a self-gifting angle for single shoppers. It has since outgrown that origin entirely and now functions as a general mega-sale for everyone, with pre-sale activity typically starting around 20 October.
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Benmingnian is a person's own zodiac year, which comes round every twelve years when the current animal matches their birth animal. Tradition treats it as a year requiring protection, most visibly through wearing red, which creates a genuine and repeating demand pattern for red-themed products such as underwear, bracelets and accessories. Enter your target audience's birth year in the panel above and the tool will tell you whether the selected year is their benmingnian.
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For a major Chinese New Year campaign, strategy and budget are typically locked around ninety days ahead, creative production starts around sixty days ahead, and media or KOL bookings are confirmed around thirty days ahead, because inventory and rates tighten sharply as the date approaches. Because Chinese New Year can fall as early as 21 January, that ninety-day mark sometimes lands in October, while your Double 11 campaign is still running. Set your team's lead time in the panel above and open the campaign plan on any date for the full milestone breakdown.
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The official public holiday runs for roughly a week, but the practical disruption is much longer. Factories and logistics often wind down one to two weeks beforehand and take one to two weeks to return to full capacity afterwards, so a realistic planning assumption is three to four weeks of reduced operations. Customer service, fulfilment and agency response times all slow down. Anything that needs to ship, launch or go live around Chinese New Year should be finished well before the holiday begins.
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A handful of dates call for restraint rather than promotion, and this calendar flags them as Red Flag Dates. Qingming Festival is a day of remembrance, so festive commercial messaging is inappropriate. Ghost Festival carries strong negative associations and is a poor moment for launches. And 15 March is Consumer Rights Day, when the annual CCTV exposé places brands under national scrutiny — a day for public-relations readiness rather than campaign pushes. Politically sensitive anniversaries and nationally declared days of mourning also pause commercial advertising at short notice.
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Chunyun is the Spring Festival travel rush, running from roughly fifteen days before Chinese New Year to twenty-five days after it. It is the largest annual human migration on earth, with hundreds of millions of journeys made by train, coach, car and plane. For marketers it concentrates enormous attention in transit environments — stations, airports, high-speed rail and in-journey mobile use — which makes it one of the strongest windows of the year for out-of-home, travel and mobile-first campaigns.
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Yes. The tool is free to use with no sign-up, registration or account required, and any selection can be exported to an .ics file that works with Outlook, Google Calendar and Apple Calendar.