Qingming Festival 2026 was on Sunday, 5 April 2026 — it has already passed. The next Qingming Festival is on Monday, 5 April 2027, in 145 days from today (11 November 2026). The exact date depends on moon sighting or the local calendar and can shift by a day. This page gives the 2026 date, what the day means, how it is observed, and the dates for 2026, 2027 and 2028.
Try the tool: Countdown Timer — count down to Qingming Festival 2026 live, second by second.
Try the tool: Days Until Calculator — count the days until any date, including Qingming Festival.
When is Qingming Festival 2026?
Qingming Festival 2026 is on Sunday, 5 April 2026 — Sunday. That date has passed; the next occurrence is Monday, 5 April 2027 (145 days away). It is a Chinese observance. The exact date depends on moon sighting or the local calendar and can shift by a day.
How the countdown is worked out
The countdown is the number of days from today to the holiday's date: the 2026 date is in the past, so the live countdown is to the next occurrence (5 April 2027), which is 145 days away. The count is in calendar days — it counts the days you have to wait, not the number of midnights, and it does not count today. The countdown timer recomputes the number live, second by second, and the days until calculator does the same calculation for any date you choose. If the holiday is in a different time zone from you, the day starts at a different moment — but the date is the date, and the countdown is in days, so the time zone does not change the number.
What is Qingming Festival?
Qingming Festival, also called Tomb-Sweeping Day, falls around 4–6 April. It is the traditional Chinese day for honouring ancestors and tending their graves.
How Qingming Festival is observed
Families visit and clean ancestral graves, offer food and burn incense. It is a public holiday in China, and it is also a time for spring outings — the name means 'clear and bright'.
How the date is worked out
Qingming Festival follows a lunar or lunisolar calendar, so its date moves each year and the exact date depends on the moon sighting or the local calendar. The dates on this page are the expected dates; they can shift by a day. For planning travel or time off, confirm the date with an official source for your country — and for religious observance, with your local religious authority.
Qingming Festival dates — 2026, 2027 and 2028
| Year | Date | Day of the week |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 5 April 2026 | Sunday |
| 2027 | 5 April 2027 | Monday |
| 2028 | 4 April 2028 | Tuesday |
Qingming Festival 2026 in the calendar
Qingming Festival 2026 is the 95th day of 2026 — a year of 365 days — and it falls in ISO week 14 of the year. There are 270 days left in the year after it, and 30 days in April 2026. In the Northern Hemisphere it is spring; in the Southern Hemisphere the seasons are reversed.
The week number matters more than people think: in business and government across Europe, dates are often given as week numbers, and the week number finder gives the ISO week for any date. The day-of-year number is used in astronomy, in logistics and in some payroll systems. And the days-left figure is the useful one for planning the rest of the year: after Qingming Festival 2026 there are 270 days — 38 weeks — left in 2026.
Planning for Qingming Festival 2026
The 2026 observance has passed, so the planning horizon is the next one: Monday, 5 April 2027 is 145 days away. That is 20 weeks — enough time to book travel, arrange time off and plan properly, and the earlier you book, the cheaper the travel usually is. The dates table above gives the next three years, so you can plan further ahead too.
Qingming Festival 2026 falls on a Sunday — a weekend day — so most people get the day without taking time off. The practical effect is that the celebrations spread across the weekend, and the Friday or Monday around it is often taken as well — so if you are booking travel, the whole weekend is the busy period, not just the day itself.
The countdown in other units
The countdown to the next Qingming Festival (Monday, 5 April 2027) is 145 days — which is 20 weeks and 5 days, 3480 hours, 208,800 minutes, or about 4.8 months. Of those 145 days, 103 are weekdays and 42 are weekend days — so if you are counting working days, there are 103 of them left before the holiday. The days between dates calculator works out the same numbers for any two dates, and the business days calculator counts the working days excluding public holidays.
Qingming Festival around the world
As a Chinese observance, this day follows the lunisolar calendar, so its date moves each year and the exact date can shift by a day. It is a public holiday in China and is observed by Chinese communities around the world. The customs — family reunion, special foods, fireworks, lanterns — are shared across the Chinese-speaking world, but the public holiday position varies by country.
Planning checklist for Qingming Festival 2026
| When | Task |
|---|---|
| Now | The 2026 observance has passed — put the next one (Monday, 5 April 2027) in your calendar, with a reminder a month before. |
| One month before | Book travel and request time off, if Qingming Festival means either. |
| One week before | Confirm plans, buy what you need, and check the date — lunar dates can shift by a day. |
More countdowns
If you are counting down to Qingming Festival, you may also be counting down to Christmas Day 2026, New Year's Day 2026, Easter Sunday 2026. And for the same holiday in another year, see Qingming Festival 2027 and Qingming Festival 2028.
Frequently asked questions
When is Qingming Festival 2026?
Qingming Festival 2026 is on Sunday, 5 April 2026 (Sunday). The exact date depends on moon sighting or the local calendar and can shift by a day.
How many days until Qingming Festival 2026?
Qingming Festival 2026 has passed. The next one is Monday, 5 April 2027, in 145 days from 11 November 2026.
What day of the week is Qingming Festival 2026?
Qingming Festival 2026 is a Sunday.
When is Qingming Festival in 2027?
Qingming Festival 2027 is on Monday, 5 April 2027 (Monday).
Is Qingming Festival a public holiday?
Qingming Festival is widely observed, but whether it is a public holiday depends on the country — check your local calendar.
What is Qingming Festival?
Qingming Festival, also called Tomb-Sweeping Day, falls around 4–6 April. It is the traditional Chinese day for honouring ancestors and tending their graves.
How many weeks until Qingming Festival 2026?
The next Qingming Festival is 145 days away, which is 20 weeks and 5 days.
How many working days are left until Qingming Festival 2026?
Count the weekdays between today and the holiday: the business days calculator does it, excluding weekends and the public holidays you add. The countdown in other units above gives the weekday count for the next occurrence.
Sources
- IANA Time Zone Database, via Node.js Intl (
Intl.DateTimeFormatwithtimeZone) — offsets, daylight saving dates and local times in this article were worked out from the IANA database, not typed from memory. - TimeFlow's own time-zone data (
data/cities.ts,data/dst.ts), computed from the IANA database. - Holiday dates: TimeFlow's own holiday data (
data/holidays.ts). Lunar and lunisolar dates are labelled approximate: the exact local date depends on moon sighting or the local calendar and can shift by a day. - TimeFlow's countdown timer and days until calculator — the live tools behind the countdown on this page.
- Time-zone and daylight saving rules are set by governments and can change. For flights, deadlines and meetings that cannot move, confirm the time with an official source.