Persian new year
Persian New Year is Nowruz, the new year at the spring equinox. It is a solar new year, not a lunar one, and it is not Chinese New Year.
what is chinese new year
What is Chinese New Year, asked on a Persian New Year page, is the other famous new-year feast people mix with Nowruz. Chinese New Year is the start of the year on the Chinese lunisolar calendar. It falls on a new moon, in late January or in February on the Gregorian wall. The date walks. The animal year walks with it. Reunion meals, red envelopes, and the stretch toward the Lantern Festival belong to that feast. They do not belong to Nowruz.
Chinese New Year in 2026 was 17 February. Persian New Year in 2026 sat at the March equinox, weeks later. Two new years can occur in the same winter-to-spring season and still not share a moon, a table, or a doctrine. If a school poster says “New Year” in February, ask which one. If a family table is set in March with a haft-sin, you are not at the lunar new year.
Chinese New Year is not “the Asian new year” as a single object. Korean, Vietnamese, and other lunar new years are related calendars with their own names and foods. Persian New Year is a different family: Iranian, Kurdish, Afghan, Central Asian, and diaspora tables around a solar tick.
Nowruz at the spring equinox
Nowruz begins at the moment of the March equinox, when the civil Iranian year ticks over. On the Gregorian calendar that moment falls on 20 or 21 March, depending on the year and on the time zone you use to label the instant. The feast is the instant, then the days around it. It is not “the third Monday in March.” It is not Chinese New Year moved by a month. It is the old solar new year still kept as a living holiday.
Households prepare a haft-sin, a setting of items whose names begin with the Persian letter sin, along with other foods and symbols that house prefers. The following days are visiting days. The thirteenth day, Sizdah Bedar, is traditionally spent outdoors, a dated outing rather than a leftover weekend. Those practices are the holiday. The equinox is the clock.
Chinese New Year: lunar, January or February on the Gregorian wall. Persian New Year (Nowruz): solar, at the March equinox. Both are new-year holidays. Neither is a substitute for the other. A diaspora city can host both in one season; they remain two calendars. Two new years can share a late winter and still refuse to share a moon.
Two new years, two clocks
Holiday travel and school breaks follow the calendar the institution actually uses. An Iranian civil office follows Nowruz. A workplace in a country that does not close for Nowruz will treat the equinox date as an ordinary workday unless the worker took leave. Chinese New Year closings, where they exist, sit in January or February. Copying one closing onto the other month is how a traveller finds an open shop and a disappointed family, or the reverse.
If you need to greet someone, use the new year they are keeping that week. Nowruz greetings belong at the equinox. Chinese New Year greetings belong at the lunar new year. A February card does not cover March. A March table does not cover February. The kindness is dated.
For a countdown, do not use “New Year” as a single target. Name Nowruz, or name Chinese New Year, then count to that rule. Persian New Year is the equinox clock. Chinese New Year is the moon clock. This page is the equinox. The February feast is the other page, even when a search box poured both into one question.
Questions and answers
- Is Persian New Year the same as Chinese New Year?
- No. Nowruz is solar and sits at the March equinox. Chinese New Year is lunisolar and sits in January or February.
- When does Nowruz start?
- At the March equinox, on 20 or 21 March by the Gregorian date of that instant in your zone.
- Does the United States close for Persian New Year?
- Not as a federal holiday under this name. Families and some local events still keep the days around the equinox.
Related guides
1 sep holiday
1 September is a public holiday only where a country named it one. The United States has no federal holiday on that date. Uzbekistan keeps Independence Day. Labor Day in 2026 was 7 September, not the
11th november holiday
The 11th November holiday is Armistice Day, Remembrance Day, or Veterans Day, depending on the country. It is a fixed date, 11 November, not a floating Monday. Other November holidays sit on other day
12 dates of christmas
12 Dates of Christmas is a 2011 ABC Family television film in which a woman relives Christmas Eve until she treats people better. It is a time-loop rom-com, not a dating app.