Lantern Festival 2027 in Taiwan: dates and Pingxi lanterns

The 2027 dates: what is fixed and what is still to come

The Lantern Festival, Yuanxiao, falls on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month. The official 2027 calendar of the Directorate-General of Personnel Administration puts Lunar New Year's Day on Saturday 6 February, so the Lantern Festival is Saturday 20 February 2027. It is not a public holiday: offices, shops and trains run as on any Saturday. The Tourism Administration calls it the little New Year, the night that closes the New Year season with lantern riddles, rice-flour dumplings (tangyuan) and temple worship.

The national lantern show has the firmest dates: the 2027 Taiwan Lantern Festival is in Miaoli County, provisionally from 20 February to 7 March 2027, in the THSR special district at Houlong, the district around THSR Miaoli Station.

The local organisers publish their programmes in the weeks before the festival, and their timing follows the lunar date: Yanshui's procession begins on the eve of the Lantern Festival and its main rocket rack is lit on the night itself, and New Taipei holds its main sky-lantern release in Shifen on or close to the festival night. That puts three big events on one night, Saturday 20 February: the Miaoli show's opening, Shifen's main release and Yanshui's main rack. No one can see all three, so pick one for the festival night and visit Miaoli on another evening of its run. For the rest of the year's holidays, see our Taiwan festivals calendar.

The Taiwan Lantern Festival in Miaoli

The Taiwan Lantern Festival is the national lantern show, run by the Tourism Administration with a different host county each year. Expect a giant main lantern lit on the opening night, whole districts of themed installations, stage shows and street parades; the Tourism Administration calls it a Disneyland without roller coasters. In 2026, in Chiayi, the show ran for 13 days, drew more than 10 million visitors and was built around a main lantern called "Alishan, Veiled in Luminous Mist", which lit up the night sky at the closing ceremony.

Miaoli, a hilly Hakka county between Hsinchu and Taichung, last hosted the festival in 2011. For 2027 it promises the slow pace of Hakka life: the county is planning the site around the high-speed rail station, with companies' lantern zones (the first, by the chipmaker KYEC, turns circuits and signals into an interactive light space), a rural zone made with village communities, and paving from recycled asphalt. MOTC also plans to tie the show to Miaoli's own Lantern Festival customs, the bombing dragon and the Houlong firecracker forts (see below).

Getting there. The site surrounds THSR Miaoli Station, so the high-speed rail is the natural way in, and the county is preparing shuttle routes and parking around it. In the THSR timetable from 2 February 2026, trains calling at Miaoli take 43 to 49 minutes from Taipei (46 to 52 minutes back), and the last northbound train calling there leaves Miaoli at 23:00: be on the platform by then if you are sleeping in Taipei. A cheaper, slower option is Taiwan Railway's Fengfu station, reached through Exit 5 of THSR Miaoli Station: in the timetable for Saturday 7 November 2026, direct trains to Taipei take 2 hours 8 minutes to 2 hours 52 minutes for NT$220, and the last leaves Fengfu at 21:33. A standard reserved seat from Taipei costs NT$430 one way (business NT$850). For the 2026 show in Chiayi, Taiwan High Speed Rail added 38 trains for the festival period, put extra unreserved cars on some evening trains, and split the station's entry and exit flows.

The busiest evenings are likely to be the opening Saturday, which is also the festival night, and the Peace Memorial Day long weekend from Saturday 27 February to Monday 1 March. The daily lighting hours come with the programme; plan an evening from dusk to the last train. Come on a weekday if you can, on a late-afternoon train, so that you see the zones in the last light and stay for the lanterns after dark.

Pingxi and Shifen: sky lanterns over the valley

Pingxi is a quiet valley of former coal villages on the upper Keelung River, east of Taipei, joined by the little Pingxi branch railway. Settlers here, harassed by bandits, once used paper lanterns to signal to their families that they were safe; today visitors write their wishes on the paper before letting the lanterns go. Under current rules Pingxi is the only area in Taiwan where sky lanterns may legally be released outdoors: it is damp, ringed by mountains and far from any airport.

Since 1999 the New Taipei City government has held the Pingxi Sky Lantern Festival at the Lantern Festival. In recent years it has had two evenings, a smaller one at Pingxi Junior High School and the main one at Shifen Square on the festival night itself: in 2026 on Friday 27 February and Tuesday 3 March (in 2024, 17 and 24 February). In 2026 each venue sent up nine waves of lanterns, 100 at a time in Pingxi and 150 in Shifen, with stage shows and a projection-mapping show before each wave. On the Shifen night the two 20-foot main lanterns rose among hundreds of others into the dark. If 2027 follows that pattern, the Shifen night falls on Saturday 20 February, with a Pingxi night four to seven days earlier.

Release vouchers. To launch a lantern in one of the mass waves you need a voucher. In 2026 free vouchers were handed out from 10:30 on each event day at the venue's service counter, and could also be reserved on the festival website beforehand. On any other day, shops along Shifen Old Street sell lanterns and help you write and launch one beside the tracks, as our Jiufen and Shifen guide describes.

Shuttle buses on a festival night. In 2026 New Taipei closed the area around each venue to cars and motorcycles from 10:00 to 23:00 and ran shuttles from MRT Taipei Zoo, the Shiding interchange and Ruifang station (for Shifen also from Keelung and Shuangxi), on which TPASS and Taiwan Tourist Shuttle tickets were not valid; the regular 795 and 846 buses ran with changed stops or routes. In 2024 you paid going up, NT$50 from Muzha (Taipei Zoo) or NT$30 from Ruifang, and rode down free.

By train. In the timetable for Saturday 7 November 2026, local 4148 leaves Taipei at 07:34 and reaches Ruifang at 08:20 (NT$73), and branch train 4814 runs Ruifang 09:04–Shifen 09:31 for NT$29, an hour before the vouchers are handed out. A Pingxi/Shen'ao day pass costs NT$120, valid on the stamped date for unlimited journeys within Badouzi–Ruifang–Jingtong. On festival days Taiwan Railway changes the branch timetable and adds trains and cars.

Timing the day. Be in Shifen by 10:30 if you want a free voucher, then walk the old street before the crowds, and bring a rain layer: Pingxi is among the areas of Taiwan with the most rainy days. February weather splits the island: in the Central Weather Administration's 1991–2020 averages, Taipei gets 143 mm of rain over about 13 days in February at a mean 16.9°C, while Tainan gets 22 mm over about 4 days at 18.9°C, as the northeast monsoon brings cloud and rain to the north. Plan the way back before the waves begin: in 2024 no shuttle went up after 19:00 and the last one down to Taipei Zoo, Ruifang and most other stations left at 23:00 (20:30 on the Shuangxi route), for the MRT or the train into Taipei.

Yanshui: the beehive rockets

In Yanshui, a small old port town in northern Tainan, the Lantern Festival is loud. In the late 19th century, the story goes, a plague killed townspeople every day until Guan Gong, the deity of the Martial Temple (Wumiao, built in 1715), told them to carry his sedan chair through the streets on the festival night and set off fireworks behind it; by dawn the plague was gone. Ever since, families and shops have built racks of bottle rockets, the beehives, and fire them as the palanquin passes, straight into the crowd that follows it. Running through the beehive is believed to clear away bad luck for the year. Come before dark to see the town Yanshui was in its harbour days: the Octagon Building, a wooden merchant house built in the 1840s for a family grown rich on sugar, still stands, and in 2026 the Yuejin Lantern Festival lit the old harbour at dusk.

In 2026 the sedan chair left the Martial Temple at 19:00 on the eve, Monday 2 March; on the festival night, Tuesday 3 March, the procession toured the whole district from 18:30 until dawn on 4 March, and the main rocket rack was lit on the sports field of Yanshui Junior High at 21:00. On the same lunar timing, expect the evening of Friday 19 February, the main rack on Saturday 20 February and a procession into the morning of Sunday 21 February.

Protective gear. In 2026, full protective gear was required to enter the firecracker zone at Yanshui Junior High, and vendors in downtown Yanshui sold helmets, thick jackets and gloves. Visitors without enough protection are often hurt; without the gear, watch from well outside the firing zone.

Getting there. From Taipei, THSR to Tainan takes 1 hour 23 minutes to 2 hours 3 minutes (timetable effective 2 February 2026) for NT$1,350 (Standard reserved), and TRA local trains from Shalun, beside the high-speed station, reach downtown Tainan in 18–25 minutes for NT$37 (TRA timetable for 20 October 2026). From Tainan, take Taiwan Railway to Xinying: in the timetable for Saturday 7 November 2026, Tze-Chiang expresses take 22 to 29 minutes for NT$131 and locals 31 minutes to 1 hour 5 minutes for NT$84. From the stop opposite Xinying station, Brown line buses run to Yanshui every 30 to 60 minutes from 06:05 to 20:05 and take 18 minutes (Tainan Tourism Bureau); the fare is NT$26 in cash, free with an electronic ticket card. Added up, these timetable legs come to about 2 hours 20 minutes to 3 hours 50 minutes of riding from Taipei to Yanshui, before waits for connections. In 2026 downtown Yanshui was closed to traffic from 15:00, so arrive in the afternoon.

Why sleep in Xinying. The last bus back to Xinying left at 01:00 in 2026, while in the same Saturday timetable the last train from Xinying to Tainan leaves at 23:20. With the main rack lit at 21:00, a 10-minute walk out of the closed centre and the 18-minute bus, a day trip from Tainan leaves you little more than an hour at the rack and nothing of the night procession. A room in Xinying keeps you a short bus ride from the rack; a room in Tainan works only if you leave the rack in time for that train. Our Tainan guide covers the city.

Miaoli's bombing dragon and other Lantern Festival nights

Several other towns keep their own Lantern Festival customs. Two of them are in Miaoli County itself.

• Miaoli bombing dragon. Miaoli's Hakka communities dance dragons through the town and pelt them with firecrackers, in the belief that the more a dragon is bombed, the more prosperous the year. In 2026 Miaoli City Office ran the series for the 28th year, from the dotting of the dragons' eyes on 25 February to the ceremony sending the dragons back to heaven on 5 March, two days after the Lantern Festival. Its high point, the Night of the Bombing Dragon on 28 February, was held at Houlong River Riverside Park, with shuttle buses from Miaoli station and THSR Miaoli Station: dragon teams entered one by one under a barrage of firecrackers, and an experience zone handed out gloves, earplugs and goggles. Miaoli City Office publishes the 2027 dates nearer the festival.
• Houlong firecracker forts (攻炮城). At Ciyun Temple in Houlong, in 2026 on the three evenings up to and including the Lantern Festival, 1 to 3 March, from 18:30, people threw lit strings of firecrackers at a three-metre tower to ignite the fireworks inside its top, with prizes for the highest hits. The custom dates from a Qing-era epidemic and is a listed folk heritage of Miaoli County.
• Taitung: Bombing of Master Han Dan. On the festival day a man representing Han Dan, a god of wealth, tours Taitung City wearing only a headscarf, a mask and red shorts, while crowds throw firecrackers at him and he shelters behind a tree branch; our Taitung guide covers the town.
• Taipei and Kaohsiung. Both cities hold major lantern festivals of their own, which the Tourism Administration lists beside the national show; their venues and dates come with each city's programme.

Bases and booking order

Most visitors see the Lantern Festival from two bases. Taipei covers Pingxi by train or shuttle and Miaoli by high-speed rail in under an hour; our where to stay in Taipei guide compares the districts, and a room near Taipei Main Station shortens both trips. For Yanshui, sleep in Xinying, the rail town where the Yanshui bus starts. Taichung, one THSR stop south of Miaoli, works too if your route runs south.

The nights themselves cost little. Rail is the main cost: per adult, a Miaoli evening from Taipei is NT$860 return by THSR Standard, and Yanshui from Taipei is NT$1,518 each way plus NT$26 cash for the bus (free with an e-ticket card), the sum of THSR to Tainan (NT$1,350), Shalun to Tainan (NT$37) and a Tze-Chiang to Xinying (NT$131). No admission charge has been announced for the Miaoli show; Pingxi's release vouchers were free in 2026, the festival shuttles cost NT$50 from Muzha or NT$30 from Ruifang uphill in 2024 and nothing downhill, and the Pingxi line day pass is NT$120. Yanshui's protective gear is the one real purchase, sold in town.

Book in this order:

• The rooms. Two or three nights in Taipei cover a Pingxi evening and a Miaoli evening. If Yanshui is your festival night, add a room in Xinying for Saturday 20 February.
• THSR and TRA seats. THSR and TRA seats for 19–20 February 2027 open on Friday 22 January 2027. THSR sells 29 days ahead and TRA 28 days ahead, and on Fridays both sell two days further, as our Taiwan transport guide explains.
• The 2027 programmes, when they appear: New Taipei City Travel for Pingxi (release vouchers, shuttles), Tainan's Yanshui festival page, and Miaoli County Government for the lantern show and the bombing dragon.

Etiquette and safety on a crowded night

At Shifen the lanterns go up beside a working railway: step off the tracks when a train comes and follow the staff's directions. Launch your lantern only where the festival or the shops release them. Every lantern comes down somewhere in the hills; New Taipei sends volunteers on clean-up hikes after the festival, and in 2026 it tried out an all-paper lantern that burns away completely in the air.

In Yanshui and at the bombing dragon, the firecrackers are part of a religious procession. Give way to the palanquin and its bearers, and keep out of the procession's path.