Chinese New Year 2026 falls on Tuesday, 17 February, with the second day on Wednesday, 18 February. Both are public holidays in Sarawak, so for most people in Kuching that is a two-day shutdown that stretches into the rest of the week. This is the Year of the Horse. The most useful thing to know is not the symbolism but the logistics: the city goes quiet, a lot of the food you rely on disappears for days, and the year I had not stocked up or been invited anywhere, I found the first two days flat and empty.
Part of our guide to Festivals & Events.
It lands harder here than in, say, Penang because of the makeup of the city. Kuching has one of the largest Chinese communities in Malaysia outside the peninsula, mostly Hokkien, Teochew, Hakka, and Foochow families whose great-grandparents settled around what is now the Old Town. When that many households all turn inward to their reunion dinners at once, the public city empties out. The first time I went looking for my usual kolo mee on the first morning, three of the four stalls I tried were shuttered with a red banner on the grille, and I was properly gutted, as we’d say back in Manchester, standing there with nowhere to eat.
TL;DR: Chinese New Year in Kuching
- When: First day Tuesday 17 February 2026, second day Wednesday 18 February 2026. Both are Sarawak public holidays.
- What closes: Most Chinese-run hawker stalls, kopitiams, and family shops, often from the eve through the first three to five days. Some do not reopen for a week.
- What stays open: Big malls (CityONE, Vivacity, the Spring), chain supermarkets, hotels, and 24-hour convenience stores, though on reduced hours.
- Where to see it: Carpenter Street and the Old Town, the Tua Pek Kong temple by the Waterfront, and Jalan Padungan, which gets strung with lights and runs a street parade most years.
- The big night: Reunion dinner on the eve, 16 February, is family-only and the most important meal of the year.
- Honest note: If you have no one to celebrate with, the first two days can feel isolating. Plan around it.
What is Chinese New Year actually like in Kuching?
It is quieter and more domestic than the tourist version you might picture. The loud, public part, the lion dances and the parade, is real but brief. Most of the festival happens behind closed doors, over food, with family who have flown back from Singapore, KL, and further.
The texture here is specific. Because the Chinese community is largely Hokkien, Teochew, and Hakka, the dialect you overhear at the markets in the run-up is not the Cantonese you might expect from films. Bak kwa (sweet barbecued pork) sellers set up temporary stalls along Padungan and outside the malls in late January, and the queues are genuinely long. The Foochow community, strong in Sarawak, brings its own dishes, including red-wine-residue cooking you will not easily find on the peninsula.
It also starts early and trails long. Shopping and spring-cleaning ramp up two weeks before, and the celebration officially runs fifteen days, to Chap Goh Meh, the fifteenth night. Most people are back at their desks after the two public holidays, but the visiting and the leftover pineapple tarts carry on into March.
What’s open and what’s closed during CNY in Kuching?
Assume most small, family-run Chinese businesses are shut from the eve onward, and you will not be caught out. Here is the rough split, based on what I see every year in my own neighbourhood:
| Likely closed (eve to day 3–5, sometimes a week) | Usually open (reduced hours) |
|---|---|
| Chinese hawker stalls and kopitiams | Shopping malls: CityONE, Vivacity, the Spring, Plaza Merdeka |
| Family-run coffee shops and noodle stalls | Chain supermarkets and hypermarkets |
| Many independent restaurants and shops | 24-hour convenience stores |
| Wet markets (or running on a skeleton) | Hotels and their restaurants |
| Some clinics and small services | Hospitals and emergency services |
A few real consequences. Malay and Indian Muslim (mamak) eateries mostly stay open through CNY, so a 24-hour mamak becomes the reliable fallback for a hot meal on the first two days. Grab still runs, but with fewer drivers and surge pricing around the parade. Banks close for the public holidays. If you take regular medication or need fresh produce, buy it before 15 February, because the wet market near me runs at a fraction of capacity for the better part of a week.
This is the genuine downside of CNY in Kuching, and I am not going to rescue it: for three or four days, the version of the city that runs on cheap, excellent hawker food simply switches off. Newcomers who treat it like a normal long weekend get stranded with a fridge full of nothing and every good stall closed. It is worse here than in a bigger, more transient city because so much of Kuching is family-run and Chinese-owned. Stock up.
Where do you see the festivities? Carpenter Street and the Old Town
The Old Town around Carpenter Street, the historic commercial core of Chinese Kuching, is where the public side of the festival concentrates. The street has 19th-century shophouses, clan temples, and kopitiams, and during CNY it gets red lanterns, occasional cultural performances, and a steady stream of people heading to the temples.
The Tua Pek Kong temple, on Jalan Tunku Abdul Rahman by the Waterfront, is the oldest Chinese temple in Kuching, with records going back to the mid-1800s. On the eve and the first day it fills with people offering joss sticks and praying for the year ahead. Go early on the first morning to see it at full intensity without the worst of the crowd.
Jalan Padungan, the avenue of 1920s and 1930s rubber-boom shophouses, is the other focal point. Most years it is strung with lights and hosts a street parade around CNY, with lion and dragon dance troupes, floats, and a lot of noise. Check the Sarawak Tourism listings or the local press for the 2026 parade date, because it moves year to year and is sometimes held the weekend before.
What is the lion dance, and where will you see it?
The lion dance is two performers under a decorated lion costume, moving to a drum, cymbals, and gong, performed to bring luck and chase off bad spirits. In Kuching you will hear it before you see it: the drumming carries for blocks. Troupes go business to business around Carpenter Street, Padungan, and inside the malls, and a shop that wants a blessing for the year will hire one to perform out front and “eat” a head of lettuce hung above the door with a red packet tucked inside.
You do not need an invitation to watch. Stand back, let the troupe work, and do not get between the lion and the drummer. The malls schedule public performances over the first weekend, the easiest place to see one if you have kids who will not last long in a temple crowd. The firecrackers that sometimes go with it are loud and sudden, worth knowing if you are jumpy or have a nervous dog.
How do ang pao and visiting etiquette work?
Ang pao (red packets of money) flow from married people to unmarried people and children. If you are an unmarried adult, you receive rather than give, which catches a lot of expats off guard. If you are married, you give. A few practical rules I learned by getting them wrong:
- Give and receive with both hands. Same as exchanging a business card. One-handed reads as careless.
- Use new or clean notes, and even amounts where you can. Avoid anything with a four in it; the word for four sounds like the word for death.
- Never open the packet in front of the giver. Pocket it, thank them, open it later.
- Bring oranges, not nothing. If you are invited to someone’s home, two mandarin oranges are the standard gift. Showing up empty-handed is the faux pas, not getting the amount wrong.
- Greetings: Gong xi fa cai (wishing you prosperity) is the all-purpose one. In Kuching you will also hear it in Hokkien.
If a colleague or neighbour invites you to their open house during the fifteen days, go. The door is open, food is laid out, and people drop in across the afternoon. It is the best way for a newcomer to experience CNY in Kuching from the inside rather than from the street.
What is reunion dinner, and will you be part of it?
Reunion dinner on the eve, 16 February 2026, is the most important meal of the Chinese year, and it is family-only. It is not the kind of evening an outsider expects to be at, and in my years here I have not been, which is exactly as it should be. It is the night the whole family gathers, often at the eldest member’s home, for a long meal of dishes chosen for their symbolism: fish for surplus, a steamboat to gather everyone around one pot, yusheng (a raw-fish salad you toss together while shouting good wishes).
I would not expect an invitation to a reunion dinner in a first year or two here, or read anything into not getting one. It is a family Christmas dinner, not a public event. The invitation that did come my way was to an open house in the days after, the come-one-come-all counterpart to the closed reunion meal. That is the door that opens.
How should an expat handle the CNY week in Kuching?
Treat it as a planned shutdown, not a long weekend. The years I have enjoyed CNY here are the ones I prepared for; the flat year was the one I assumed the city would run as normal.
- Stock up before 15 February. Food, medication, cash. Assume your usual hawker stall is closed for a week.
- Find your fallback meals. Note which mamak and mall outlets near you stay open. You will rely on them.
- Say yes to any open-house invitation. It is the whole experience, condensed into one warm afternoon.
- Consider getting out of town. Some expats use the holidays to head to Bako or Santubong. Domestic flights and the better lodges fill up early, so book ahead.
If you are on your own for it, plan something rather than wait for the city to entertain you. A closed Kuching at CNY does not come to you.
The bottom line for 2026
Chinese New Year 2026 runs from the eve on 16 February through the public holidays on the 17th and 18th, and trails on to Chap Goh Meh in early March. In Kuching it is bigger and more all-encompassing than almost anywhere else in Malaysia, because so much of the city is Chinese and family-run, which is exactly why so much of it closes.
Planning your year around Kuching’s festivals? Read our guide to Gawai Dayak, the June harvest festival that empties the city the same way CNY does, and our why Sarawak feels different piece for the wider context on Borneo’s mix of communities.
One concrete marker to leave you with: the morning after the second day, the bak kwa stalls along Padungan drop to half-price and the queues are gone. That, more than any banner, is how you know the first wave of the festival has passed.
Keep exploring Kuching Insider: Gawai Dayak, Sarawak’s public holidays, and what to eat in Kuching.