Giỗ Tổ Hùng Vương 2027: Hùng Kings' Day Falls on 16 April

Giỗ Tổ Hùng Vương — Hùng Kings' Commemoration Day — falls on Friday, 16 April 2027: the 10th day of the 3rd lunar month in the year Đinh Mùi. It is one of Vietnam's official public holidays, and in 2027 it lands on a Friday, which points to a natural three-day weekend. We converted the lunar date against two independent Vietnamese calendar sources in August 2026; the anchors and method are at the end of this page.

The 2027 dates at a glance

Friday, 16 April 2027 — Giỗ Tổ Hùng Vương itself, the 10th day of the 3rd lunar month (mùng 10 tháng 3 năm Đinh Mùi). A national public holiday: government offices, banks and schools close.

16–18 April 2027, the likely long weekend — Vietnam's official 2027 holiday calendar had not been finalised when we wrote this (August 2026). The Ministry of Home Affairs draft, put to public consultation on 4–10 August 2026, proposes exactly this Friday-to-Sunday block, and the final schedule is due by 30 September 2026. We will update this page when it is confirmed.

Tuesday, 20 April 2027 — Hội An's lantern night for that lunar month, the 14th day (14/3). Four days after the holiday, the Ancient Town closes to motor traffic in the evening and is lit by silk lanterns and candlelight.

What Giỗ Tổ Hùng Vương commemorates

The Hùng kings are the semi-legendary founders of Văn Lang, regarded as the first Vietnamese state, and the holiday is best understood as a national ancestral rite: the entire country honouring a shared origin the way a family honours its forebears on a death anniversary (giỗ). Few countries anywhere keep a public holiday for their founding ancestors, and it is the clearest public expression of the ancestor veneration that runs through Vietnamese life.

A folk verse most Vietnamese know by heart sets the date better than any calendar: "Dù ai đi ngược về xuôi / Nhớ ngày Giỗ Tổ mùng mười tháng ba" — wherever you travel, upstream or down, remember the Ancestors' Day on the tenth of the third month.

Is it a public holiday in Vietnam?

Yes. The 2019 Labour Code (Article 112) grants one paid day off for Giỗ Tổ Hùng Vương, taken on the lunar date 10/3 — in 2027, Friday 16 April. Because it falls on a working Friday, no substitute day is triggered; the draft schedule simply lets the holiday run into the weekend as a 16–18 April block. The rule now under consultation would also require Vietnam to announce each year's holiday calendar by 30 September of the preceding year, so the 2027 decision is expected by the end of September 2026.

Where the main ceremonies happen

The centre of the holiday is Đền Hùng, the temple complex on Nghĩa Lĩnh hill outside Việt Trì in Phú Thọ province, where the state ceremony is held on the morning of the 10th and pilgrims climb between the Lower, Middle and Upper temples in one of the largest annual pilgrimages in the country. The wider practice — the Worship of Hùng Kings in Phú Thọ — was inscribed by UNESCO on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2012 (session 7.COM, decision 11.36).

Planning a trip around this? See dates at our quiet riverside hotel on the Thu Bồn. Check availability →

The legend of bánh chưng and bánh giầy

The holiday's signature story is the tale of Lang Liêu, the humble prince who won the throne not with rare delicacies but with two simple cakes: bánh chưng, square like the earth, of glutinous rice, mung bean and pork wrapped in lá dong leaves; and bánh giầy, round like the sky, of pounded glutinous rice. The sixth Hùng king judged them the truest offering because they came from the land itself, and both cakes are still offered to ancestors on this day and at Tết.

What the day looks like in Hội An

Hội An has no equivalent of the Phú Thọ ceremonies. The day is observed the Vietnamese way — incense at family altars and at the communal houses (đình) that anchor each neighbourhood — and felt mostly as a domestic long weekend. Expect the Ancient Town's evenings, the riverfront and An Bàng beach to be noticeably busier with Vietnamese families; restaurants, cafes and shops stay open, while government offices close on the Friday.

Mid-April is also one of Hội An's most settled stretches of weather: the winter rains are long gone and the fiercest summer heat has not yet arrived. If the 16–18 April block is confirmed, book accommodation for that weekend early — domestic long weekends fill the town faster than international seasons do.

Watching it from the river

Our own corner of the holiday is quiet. Nghê Prana sits on the Thu Bồn river a few minutes from the Ancient Town, and on a holiday weekend the contrast is the point: mornings on the water are still, the bicycles will get you into town before the day-trip buses arrive, and the spa and our farm-to-table restaurant The Corn carry the evenings. Staying through the week also puts you in town for the lantern night of Tuesday 20 April, when the old streets go over to candlelight.

How we verified these dates

The lunar conversion (10/3 Đinh Mùi = Friday 16 April 2027) was cross-checked in August 2026 against two independent Vietnamese calendar sources, ngaydep.com and publicholidays.vn, and is consistent with the anchor we use across all our 2027 pages: mùng 1 Tết Đinh Mùi = Saturday 6 February 2027. The lantern night follows Hội An's own rule of the 14th lunar day, giving Tuesday 20 April 2027. The 16–18 April holiday block is a Ministry of Home Affairs draft (public consultation 4–10 August 2026), not yet law; the final 2027 schedule is expected by 30 September 2026, and this page will be updated when it lands.