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Travel Guide
Updated June 2026 · By the LongDenViet workshop, Ho Chi Minh City
The Hoi An Lantern Festival 2026 follows a ritual that has run here, in some form, for four centuries: once a month the electricity dims, shop owners swap neon for candles, streets go quiet, and the whole riverfront turns the colour of warm silk.
This guide covers every 2026 festival date, what to expect when you show up, the story behind the tradition, and practical advice for making the most of the night. Visiting, photographing, or just deciding if it is worth planning your itinerary around it — start here.
The festival falls on the 14th day of each lunar month — the eve of the full moon. These are the confirmed 2026 dates for every monthly celebration.
Hoi An holds its Lantern Festival every month without exception, year-round. It runs roughly from 6:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. on the 14th day of the lunar calendar. The table below lists all twelve occasions for 2026.
Mark 2 March 2026 in your calendar
The March festival is the largest of the year. It falls on the first full moon after Tet (Lunar New Year falls on 17 February 2026), so the town is still in a celebratory mood and the crowds — and the atmosphere — are at their peak.
Every monthly event is worth attending, but if your trip can flex even a day or two, timing it to one of these evenings transforms the visit. The old town is always charming; on festival night it is something else entirely.
From 6 p.m. the old town runs on candlelight and silk.
As evening approaches, shop owners start switching off their electric lights. By 6 p.m. the entire Ancient Town — the yellow-walled streets, the covered Japanese Bridge, the riverside promenade — is lit only by lanterns. Thousands of them: hung from eaves, strung across narrow lanes, carried by hand, floated on the Thu Bon River.
The river is the heart of it. Local families and tourists buy small paper lanterns — each one holds a tea light — from women selling them from low wooden boats along the bank. You light the candle, make a wish, and set the lantern on the water. The current carries it out, a slow drift of small flames moving downstream in the dark.
Along the streets there is folk music: traditional Vietnamese instruments, local choirs, sometimes a dance performance in one of the open courtyards. Games and food stalls set up near the bridge. Children run with handheld lanterns shaped like fish and stars.
The whole thing wraps up by around 10 p.m. when the electric lights flick back on. Arriving before sunset — say around 5:30 p.m. — lets you watch the transition from ordinary evening to candlelit festival, which is itself worth seeing.
Four centuries of full-moon ritual, from Chinese trading ships to UNESCO status.
The full-moon festival in Hoi An grew out of two overlapping traditions. One is Buddhist: the 15th day of each lunar month (the full moon itself, though the festival here is on the eve, the 14th) is considered an auspicious day for prayer, ancestor worship and acts of merit. Lighting a candle or floating a lantern on the river is an offering — for the health of the family, for fortune in the coming month, for the souls of those who have passed.
The other root is commercial. From roughly the 1600s, Hoi An was one of Southeast Asia's busiest trading ports. Chinese merchants and Japanese traders settled here in their own quarters, each community maintaining the rituals of home. The practice of setting candle-lit paper boats and lanterns on the river on full-moon nights was among them. Over generations the two streams merged into a single local observance.
Hoi An was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999, partly because this layered cultural heritage — the architecture, the trade history, the living rituals — survived almost intact. The Lantern Festival is one of the clearest expressions of that continuity. The lanterns hanging over Tran Phu Street today are made by the same methods, with the same bamboo-and-silk construction, as those that lit the port four hundred years ago.
Red is the most common colour: a wish for luck and prosperity. Yellow, the colour of Hoi An itself (the old buildings are painted that specific warm ochre), represents royalty and good fortune. Blue suggests the river, calm and steady progress. A round shape reads as wholeness and family unity. A fish shape — very common at festivals — symbolises abundance. These are not rigid rules, but understanding them changes how you look at the streets.
Practical advice for making the most of the night.
Check whether the old town ticket is required for the evening you plan to visit — entry to the Hoi An Ancient Town heritage zone may need an admission ticket depending on how you enter and which attractions you access. The ticket situation can change seasonally, so confirm locally when you arrive.
The whole point of the festival is that the light is low. That is great for atmosphere; it is harder for cameras. A few things help. If you are shooting on a phone, tap the brightest lantern in the frame to set exposure — the phone will open the sensor wide and everything glows rather than going black. On a dedicated camera, a wide aperture (f/1.8 or f/2.8), ISO around 800–1600, and a shutter speed of at least 1/60s for handheld shots keeps things sharp. A small gorilla pod or just bracing against a wall makes a real difference. Avoid flash — it kills the candlelit quality and annoys people around you.
The river lantern floats make for the best long-exposure shots: 3–5 seconds on a steady surface gives you trails of warm light on moving water. You do not need elaborate gear — a phone propped on a railing and the timer set to avoid camera shake does the same thing.
On the bigger nights
The March festival draws the largest crowds of the year — it falls just after Tet and the town is still in a celebratory mood. The September festival is also very busy, as it falls close to the Mid-Autumn season. Expect the streets to be genuinely packed by 7 p.m. on those nights. If you dislike crowds, a quieter month like July or November gives you the full experience with far more room to breathe.
The silk lanterns strung over Tran Phu Street are the same handmade pieces we make in our Ho Chi Minh City workshop.
The lanterns you see in Hoi An are not decorations manufactured somewhere for tourist sale. They are the product of a craft tradition: aged bamboo bent and lashed into shape, real silk pulled over the frame, dip-dyed in colours that have centuries of symbolic weight behind them. The same construction method, the same materials.
We are LongDenViet, a lantern workshop based in Ho Chi Minh City, making traditional Vietnamese lanterns since 2016. Eight shapes, fourteen colours, sizes from 10 cm to over a metre — the full range is on our English page. Every lantern is made to fold flat, so it packs in a suitcase or ships economically anywhere in the world via DHL or FedEx.
If you fell for the atmosphere of the festival and want that same warm glow at home — over a dining table, in a garden, strung across a terrace — this is the most direct route. Message us on WhatsApp or email with what you have in mind and we will suggest the right size and colour.
The handmade silk lanterns strung over Hoi An are the same ones we make and ship worldwide — pick your shapes and colours below.
When is the next Hoi An lantern festival in 2026?
The festival happens every month on the 14th day of the lunar calendar. The upcoming 2026 dates are: 28 June, 27 July, 26 August, 24 September, 23 October, 22 November, and 22 December. The biggest celebration of the year was 2 March 2026, the first full moon after Tet.
Is the Hoi An Lantern Festival free to attend?
The festival atmosphere — the lit streets, the riverside, the music — is free to walk through. Entry to specific heritage sites within the Hoi An Ancient Town may require an admission ticket depending on which attractions you access. Check locally when you arrive, as the ticketing arrangements can vary. Floating paper lanterns on the river are sold by vendors on the bank for a small fee.
Can I release a lantern on the river in Hoi An?
Yes. Small paper lanterns with tea lights are sold by women in wooden boats along the south bank of the Thu Bon River during the festival. You buy one, light the candle inside, and set it on the water. The current carries it downstream. It is one of the most memorable things you can do in Hoi An.
What is the biggest lantern festival in Hoi An in 2026?
The largest event of the year is the March festival, which fell on 2 March 2026. It coincides with the first full moon after Lunar New Year (Tet, 17 February 2026), so the town is still in a festive mood and the celebration draws its biggest crowds and most elaborate decorations. After that, the September festival — near the Mid-Autumn Festival season — is also notably larger than the other monthly events.
The same bamboo-and-silk lanterns that light up Hoi An's streets on full-moon nights — made by hand in our Ho Chi Minh City workshop, in eight shapes and fourteen colours, shipped flat-packed worldwide.
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