Tết and travel in Vietnam

Tết Nguyên Đán is the first day of the first month of the lunisolar calendar, falling between about 21 January and 20 February. Vietnam uses a calendar calculated for the UTC+7 meridian, so in rare years its New Year differs by a day from China's (1985 and 2007 are the recent examples); in 2027–2029 the dates are expected to match (check against the official calendar). The festival season runs well beyond the day itself: from the kitchen-gods day a week before to about the tenth day after.

The government sets the exact holiday each year, usually in the preceding autumn. The Labour Code grants five days; with weekends and a swapped working day it usually becomes seven to nine days off in a row for state employees, and many private businesses, especially family-run ones, close longer.

The week or two before Tết is the best time to be in Vietnam for the festival. Cities fill with flower markets, kumquat trees and peach blossom (đào) in the north, yellow apricot blossom (mai) in the south, stacked on the backs of motorbikes. Markets sell sticky-rice cakes, candied fruit and red decorations; offices hold year-end parties; traffic is at its worst. On the kitchen-gods day, families release live carp into lakes and rivers to carry the gods to heaven.

New Year's Eve and the first three days (Mùng 1–3) are family time. Streets empty, shutters go down, and people visit parents, in-laws and teachers in a fixed order. Public fireworks at midnight are held in the main cities (check locations each year). From day four, businesses reopen gradually; the big cities feel normal again by around day seven to ten, while small-town family businesses may stay shut until the fifteenth.

Expect family restaurants, street-food stalls, local markets, tailors, small hotels and guesthouses run by families, travel agents and most government offices, including immigration offices, to close for three to seven days from New Year's Eve. Banks close for the official holiday. Street food is the biggest loss: the stall you ate at every day will vanish.

International and large hotels, chain cafés and convenience stores, supermarkets in malls (often with shorter hours on day one), restaurants in tourist districts and resort areas, and most major sights stay open or close only on New Year's Day. Museums and sights often reopen by day two or three. Pagodas and temples are busiest of all, crowded with families praying for the year. Hospitals keep emergency services running.

Restaurants and cafés that stay open commonly add a Tết surcharge of 10–30% to the bill, sometimes printed on the menu, sometimes only on the receipt (check before ordering). Hairdressers, spas and laundries do the same. Grab and taxi fares surge, and the drivers who are working know it. Hotel rates in resort areas and in Hội An can rise sharply for the holiday nights, while business hotels in Hanoi and Saigon sometimes drop rates because their normal guests have gone home.

Transport prices rise with demand: train fares on busy dates are higher than the normal tariff, sleeper-bus operators add a holiday supplement, and domestic flights on the main routes out of Hanoi and Saigon in the week before Tết go at peak prices. Book early and the rise is modest; book late and there may be nothing left to buy.

Tết is the one time most of the country travels home. In the week before, trains, buses and flights out of Hanoi and Saigon towards the provinces are full; in the week after, the flows reverse. Vietnam Railways opens Tết ticket sales months in advance, often in the autumn before (check), and adds extra trains that also sell out. Sleeper buses run packed and roads out of the cities jam on the last working days.

Book every leg 1–2 months ahead, and consider travelling against the flow: into the big cities just before Tết and out of them just after is easier than the reverse. The days themselves (Mùng 1–3) are the quietest travel days of the year, if the service you need runs. Leave slack in any plan that ends with an international flight in the fortnight around Tết.

The standard greeting is 'Chúc mừng năm mới' (Happy New Year); adding 'an khang thịnh vượng' (peace and prosperity) is well received. Lì xì are small red envelopes of new banknotes given to children and elderly relatives; if you are invited to a home, bring a gift of fruit, tea or sweets, and a few envelopes with ₫20,000–50,000 in crisp notes for children (check the local norm with your host).

The first visitor to a house after midnight, the xông đất or first-footer, is believed to set the household's luck for the year, and families choose that person carefully. Do not drop in on New Year's morning unless invited. People avoid sweeping, arguing, lending money and wearing black or white on the first days; follow your hosts' lead and smile.

Hanoi has the most traditional Tết: the Hàng Lược flower market in the Old Quarter, peach-blossom stalls on every corner, and a cold, damp January or February (10–20°C). The Old Quarter empties on days one to three and the lake is peaceful; fireworks at Hoàn Kiếm lake (check). Tourist cafés and restaurants around the lake stay open.

Hội An keeps more open than most towns because it lives on tourism; lanterns go up across the old town and the weather is mild. Many tailors and family eateries still close for several days. Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) is warm and dry, and its Nguyễn Huệ flower street, a pedestrian avenue of flower displays, runs over the holiday (check dates); much of the city's migrant workforce leaves, so the streets are strikingly quiet.

Pick one of three plans. Arrive early: land a week or more before, travel while things are open and watch the build-up, then stay put. Stay put in a big city: base yourself in Hanoi, Saigon or Đà Nẵng for the core days, where hotels, chain cafés and sights stay open. Go to a resort: a beach hotel on Phú Quốc or near Đà Nẵng runs normally throughout, though at peak prices.

What not to do is plan a fast multi-city route across the holiday, arrive with nothing booked, or rely on visa extensions, ferries, or small family guesthouses in the week around it. Lunar New Year also shuts much of mainland China, Singapore's Chinatown businesses, Taiwan and Hong Kong for a few days, and is Seollal in South Korea, so neighbouring trips see the same crowds. The month pages on the Vietnam when-to-go guide show January and February weather in detail.