Oshōgatsu (お正月, おしょうがつ), the Japanese New Year, is the most important holiday in Japan, celebrated on January 1 under the Gregorian calendar rather than at Lunar New Year. The word literally means the first month. In practice it runs from the year-end clean in late December to the first shrine visit, and government offices close from December 29 to January 3.
Japanese New Year traditions run from mid-December to mid-January and centre on shōgatsu (正月), the New Year period itself. The season has one organising idea: the household prepares to receive the toshigami (年神), the deity of the incoming year. Everything else, the cleaning, the decorations, the food, the shrine visit, follows from that.
One Long Sequence, Not One Night
The first thing to understand about the Japanese New Year is that it is not an evening. It is a month, and it moves in a particular direction.
Western New Year points forward: the countdown, the resolution, the toast. The Japanese sequence spends four weeks pointing backward, closing accounts. Debts settled, gifts sent, the house scrubbed to the tops of the door frames, the year’s frustrations drunk away at an office party. Only once the old year is properly finished does anyone begin the new one.
The second thing is that the season is quiet at its centre. Offices close from roughly December 29 to January 3, small shops shut for days, and families sit indoors eating cold food out of lacquer boxes. It is the closest Japan comes to stopping.
Does Japan Celebrate Lunar New Year?
No. Japan has celebrated New Year on January 1 of the Gregorian calendar since 1873, and Lunar New Year is neither a public holiday nor a national custom. The date that the rest of East Asia keeps in late January or February passes in most of Japan without anyone marking it.
The switch was sudden. The Meiji government announced the new calendar in November 1872, and the third day of the twelfth month of Meiji 5 simply became January 1, 1873. The National Diet Library’s history of the Japanese calendar records that the short notice caused great confusion. Every custom moved with the date: the pine at the gate, the rice cakes, the first shrine visit, all of it slid from the old lunar New Year onto a fixed day in midwinter. Under the old way of counting age, kazoedoshi (数え年), everyone also turned a year older together at New Year, which is part of why the holiday carried so much weight.
A few places still keep the older date alive:
| Place | What happens | When |
|---|---|---|
| Okinawa | Kyū shōgatsu (旧正月), the old-calendar New Year, is still kept in parts of Okinawa. At Itoman’s fishing port the boats fly tairyō-bata (大漁旗), big-catch flags | The lunar New Year date, which fell on February 1 in 2022 |
| Nagasaki | The Nagasaki Lantern Festival grew out of the Chinese New Year celebration of Shinchi Chinatown and now hangs about 15,000 lanterns across the city centre | February 5 to 21, 2027 |
| Yokohama | Yokohama Chinatown has held Shunsetsu (春節), the Spring Festival, since 1986, with lion dances and a night parade | Around the lunar New Year |
So the honest answer has two parts. Japan’s New Year is January 1. Lunar New Year survives in parts of Okinawa, such as the fishing port at Itoman, and in the Chinatowns, where it belongs to the Chinese community and anyone who comes to watch.
Oshogatsu: What the Word Means and When It Falls
Shōgatsu (正月) means the first month. It names January itself and the holiday inside it. The o in oshōgatsu (お正月) is the polite prefix that turns cha into ocha, and it gives the word a warmer, household feel, closer to “the New Year” said with affection than to a calendar term.
The holiday is not one block of days. It is three windows nested inside each other.
| Term | Dates | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Sanganichi (三が日) | January 1 to 3 | The core holiday. Families drink otoso (屠蘇), spiced New Year sake, and eat ozōni. Hatsumōde crowds peak |
| Matsu no uchi (松の内) | January 1 to 7, or to January 15 in Kyoto and Osaka | “Within the pine,” the days the kadomatsu stand and the toshigami is in residence |
| Koshōgatsu (小正月) | Around January 15 | The little New Year, a date kept from the old calendar, when many towns burn the decorations |
The Encyclopedia of Shinto published by Kokugakuin University notes that the events of ōshōgatsu (大正月), the great New Year, begin in most places on December 13, and that the holiday period lasts until January 7, with the 15th kept as koshōgatsu. The matsu no uchi dates vary by town as well as by region. Some places take the pine down on the 6th, some on the 8th, and Kyoto and Osaka keep it until the 15th.
Only one day of all this is a national holiday: Ganjitsu (元日), January 1. The rest of the closure is custom. Government offices and many businesses shut from December 29 to January 3, so for many working people the holiday is six days long, not one.
In the coming season sanganichi runs Friday to Sunday, January 1 to 3, 2027. Matsu no uchi ends on Thursday, January 7 in Tokyo and on Friday, January 15 in Kyoto and Osaka.
The Timeline
| Date or window | Tradition | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| December 13 | Kotohajime (事始め) | Formal start of New Year preparations |
| Early to mid December | Oseibo (お歳暮) | Year-end gifts sent to those who helped you |
| Throughout December | Bōnenkai (忘年会) | Year-forgetting parties with colleagues and friends |
| Mid to late December | Nengajō (年賀状) | New Year cards written and posted |
| December 24 | Christmas cake and KFC | The modern imported half of the season |
| Late December | Ōsōji (大掃除) | Year-end deep clean of the whole house |
| December 28 | Kadomatsu (門松) | Pine and bamboo decorations set at the gate |
| December 31 | Ōmisoka (大晦日) | New Year’s Eve: toshikoshi soba, Kōhaku, temple bells |
| Midnight, December 31 | Joya no kane (除夜の鐘) | Temple bells struck 108 times across midnight |
| January 1, dawn | Hatsuhinode (初日の出) | Watching the first sunrise of the year |
| January 1 | Osechi ryōri (お節料理) | Tiered boxes of symbolic New Year food |
| January 1 | Otoshidama (お年玉) | Envelopes of money given to children |
| January 1 to 3 | Hatsumōde (初詣) | First shrine or temple visit of the year |
| January 2 | Hatsu-uri and fukubukuro | First sale of the year, and lucky bags |
| January 2 | Kakizome (書き初め) | First calligraphy of the year |
| Night of January 1 to 2 | Hatsuyume (初夢) | The first dream, read for omens |
| January 7 or 15 | End of matsu no uchi | Decorations come down, Kantō then Kansai |
| January 11 | Kagami biraki (鏡開き) | The offering rice cake is broken and eaten |
| Around January 15 | Dondo-yaki (どんど焼き) | Decorations burned on communal bonfires |
| Second Monday of January | Seijin no Hi (成人の日) | Coming of Age Day ceremonies |
Day by Day: December 28 to January 11
The timeline above covers the whole two months. This is the dense part, the fortnight when Japan actually stops, set out with the weekdays for the coming New Year, 2026 into 2027.
| Date | Tradition | What happens | More |
|---|---|---|---|
| By Monday, Dec 28 | Ōsōji (大掃除) | The year-end clean should be finished, since cleaning on the 31st is treated as rushed | The year-end clean |
| Monday, Dec 28 | Kadomatsu (門松) and shimekazari | Pine at the gate and straw rope on the door. The 29th and the 31st are avoided | Kadomatsu |
| Tuesday, Dec 29 | The holiday begins | Government offices and many businesses close until January 3 | |
| Thursday, Dec 31 | Ōmisoka (大晦日) | New Year’s Eve at home, with Kōhaku on the television | Ōmisoka |
| Dec 31, evening | Toshikoshi soba (年越しそば) | Year-crossing noodles, finished before midnight | Toshikoshi soba |
| Dec 31, near midnight | Joya no kane (除夜の鐘) | Temple bells struck 108 times across the turn of the year | Joya no kane |
| Friday, Jan 1, dawn | Hatsuhinode (初日の出) | The first sunrise, watched from beaches, hills and rooftops | Hatsuhinode |
| Friday, Jan 1 | Osechi ryōri (お節料理) | Tiered lacquer boxes of symbolic food, cooked in advance | Osechi ryōri |
| Jan 1 to 3 | Ozōni (お雑煮) | Mochi soup, the one hot dish of the morning, recipe set by region | Ozōni, the New Year soup |
| Friday, Jan 1 | Otoshidama (お年玉) | Money for children in small pochibukuro envelopes | Otoshidama |
| Jan 1 to 3 | Hatsumōde (初詣) | The first shrine or temple visit, busiest on the three-day weekend | Hatsumōde |
| Saturday, Jan 2 | Kakizome (書き初め) and hatsu-uri | First calligraphy of the year, and the first sales with lucky bags | Kakizome |
| Thursday, Jan 7 | Nanakusa-gayu (七草粥) | Seven-herb rice porridge. In Tokyo the pine comes down | |
| Monday, Jan 11 | Kagami biraki (鏡開き) | The offering rice cake is broken and eaten. In 2027 it is also Coming of Age Day | Kagami mochi |
December 13: Kotohajime
The season formally opens on December 13 with shōgatsu kotohajime (正月事始め), the beginning of New Year matters. Historically this was the day households cut pine for decorations and cleaned the family altar, and it is still observed at temples and in traditional trades. Kyoto’s geiko and maiko visit their teachers on the 13th to give thanks for the year. Nobody starts scrubbing that early any more, but the date marks the boundary after which the season is under way.
Oseibo: Settling the Debt of Gratitude
Oseibo (お歳暮) are year-end gifts, sent in the first three weeks of December to the people who supported you across the year: a manager, a mentor, a doctor, a long-standing client. They are almost always consumable, ham, sweets, fruit, beer, coffee, on the principle that a gift which disappears leaves no obligation behind.
Department stores build temporary floors for oseibo and the deliveries arrive by courier. It is the season’s most formal custom, and the one younger households most often skip.
Bōnenkai: Drinking the Year Off
Bōnenkai (忘年会), the year-forgetting party, is the loud half of December. Companies, departments, clubs, and groups of old friends book izakaya private rooms through the month, raise a glass, and agree to leave the year’s frictions on the table.
The convention that makes it work is bureikō (無礼講), the announced suspension of hierarchy for the evening. It is honoured in part rather than in full, but it is real enough that things get said at a bōnenkai which would never surface in a meeting.
Nengajō: The Cards That All Arrive at Once
Nengajō (年賀状) are New Year postcards, written through December and posted by around the 25th so that Japan Post can hold them back and deliver every one of them on the morning of January 1. Each card carries the year’s zodiac animal, which for 2027 is the Sheep, hitsuji (未).
One rule matters more than the rest: a household in mourning sends a mochū hagaki (喪中葉書) in November instead, notifying contacts not to send cards that year.
The Imported Half: Cake and Fried Chicken
Before the traditional season begins in earnest, Japan spends a fortnight on a Christmas it has entirely rewritten. Almost every household buys a Japanese Christmas cake, a white sponge with cream and strawberries, on December 24. A very large number of them order KFC for Christmas, a custom built almost single-handedly by a 1974 advertising campaign.
Neither has any religious content in Japan and neither is a holiday. December 25 is an ordinary working day. The cake and the barrel are the season’s cheerful, commercial prologue, and then the mood changes. How the rest of that fortnight works, from the illuminations to Christmas Eve as a couples’ night, is set out in Japanese Christmas traditions.
Ōsōji: Clearing the Year Out of the House
Ōsōji (大掃除) is the year-end deep clean, and it is the practical heart of the whole season. Cupboards come out. Windows get done. Light fittings and the tops of things receive attention they get once a year. Schools, offices, and temples do it too.
The logic is not hygiene. The incoming year should not have to arrive into the residue of the old one. Most households aim to finish by December 30, since cleaning on the 31st is considered rushed.
The Decorations
Three objects do three different jobs, all of them set out around December 28. December 29 is avoided because nine reads as suffering, and December 31 is avoided because one-night decorating, ichiya-kazari (一夜飾り), looks like leaving the guest until the last minute.
Kadomatsu (門松), pine and bamboo arrangements, stand in pairs at the gate as a perch for the arriving deity. A shimenawa rope or shimekazari wreath goes on the door to mark the space as purified. And kagami mochi (鏡餅), two stacked round rice cakes topped with a bitter orange, sits indoors as the offering itself. The name means mirror rice cake, after the round bronze mirrors of Japanese antiquity.
Ōmisoka: The Last Evening
Ōmisoka (大晦日) is December 31, and it is a domestic evening rather than a party. In the coming season it falls on Thursday, December 31, 2026.
Sometime after dinner the household eats toshikoshi soba (年越しそば), year-crossing buckwheat noodles. Long strands mean a long life, and soba snaps cleanly under the teeth, which reads as cutting the year’s troubles off rather than dragging them across. The bowl should be finished before midnight. The television carries Kōhaku Uta Gassen (紅白歌合戦), the NHK song contest that has run since 1951, with the year’s musicians split into a red team and a white team.
Near midnight, temples begin joya no kane (除夜の鐘), striking the great bell 108 times, once for each of the earthly desires Buddhist teaching counts as a source of suffering. Most strike 107 times before midnight and hold the last blow for the far side of the boundary. Many let visitors take a turn, which makes it the season’s most accessible ritual.
January 1: Ganjitsu
Ganjitsu (元日), New Year’s Day, falls on Friday, January 1, 2027. Four things happen, roughly in this order.
Hatsuhinode (初日の出), the first sunrise, draws people to beaches, mountains, and rooftops before dawn. It is one of the few New Year customs performed outdoors and in silence.
Osechi ryōri (お節料理) is the New Year food, packed into tiered lacquer jūbako boxes and cooked days in advance so nobody has to work in the kitchen. Every dish carries a wish: black soybeans for health, herring roe for children, rolled kelp for joy, candied sardines for a good harvest.
Otoshidama (お年玉) is money for children, given in small decorated envelopes called pochibukuro (ぽち袋). The amount scales with age, commonly a few thousand yen for primary-school children and five thousand or more for junior high. A 2019 survey of parents found more than three-quarters describing it as some degree of financial burden, mostly on account of relatives’ children rather than their own.
Hatsumōde (初詣) is the first shrine or temple visit, made during sanganichi (三が日), the first three days. It is the largest single movement of people in the Japanese year, with something close to a hundred million visits counted in those three days. Visitors buy omamori charms, draw omikuji fortunes, and hand in last year’s charms to be burned.
In the coming season sanganichi runs Friday to Sunday, January 1 to 3, 2027, a clean three-day weekend, which means heavier crowds than in a year that breaks midweek.
January 2: Firsts
January 2 is the day for doing things for the first time.
Hatsu-uri (初売り) is the first sale, and it brings fukubukuro (福袋), sealed lucky bags sold below the value of their unknown contents. The bags began at the Ginza department store Matsuya in the late Meiji era and are now split between dawn queues and online lotteries that close in December.
Kakizome (書き初め) is the first calligraphy: a chosen word or phrase brushed on washi. The sheets are kept until the mid-January bonfires, and the higher yours flies in the flames, the better your brushwork is said to become.
Hatsuyume (初夢) is the first dream, counted as the one on the night of January 1 into 2. The luckiest omens, in descending order, are Mount Fuji, a hawk, and an aubergine. The character itself, 夢, is covered in dream in Japanese, including the baku that is said to eat bad dreams.
The Season Closes
Matsu no uchi (松の内), the period within the pine, ends on January 7 in the Kantō region around Tokyo and January 15 in Kansai. Decorations come down accordingly. January 7 is also nanakusa-gayu (七草粥), a rice porridge of seven spring herbs eaten to settle a stomach that has spent a week on osechi and sake.
Kagami biraki (鏡開き), on January 11, is the breaking of the kagami mochi. The rice cake, hardened after ten days on the shelf, is cracked apart with a wooden mallet rather than cut with a blade, because cutting suggests severing ties. The pieces go into soup or are grilled with sugar and soy.
Dondo-yaki (どんど焼き), also called sagichō, is the closing act: communal bonfires at shrines and on open ground around January 15, where kadomatsu, shimekazari, spent charms, old daruma dolls, and kakizome sheets burn together. The smoke sends the toshigami back, and sparks landing on you count as good luck.
Seijin no Hi (成人の日), Coming of Age Day, falls on the second Monday of January, which in 2027 is Monday, January 11. Municipalities hold ceremonies for that year’s new adults and the streets fill with furisode and hakama. By the following morning Japan is fully back at work.
Japanese New Year Food
Japanese New Year food comes in a fixed order, and each dish has its day.
| Food | When | What it is for |
|---|---|---|
| Toshikoshi soba | Evening of December 31 | Long noodles for a long life, snapped cleanly to cut off the old year |
| Osechi ryōri | January 1 to 3 | Cold, preserved dishes in tiered boxes, each carrying a wish |
| Ozōni | January 1 to 3 | Mochi soup, clear in the east and white miso in the west |
| Otoso (屠蘇) | January 1 to 3 | Spiced New Year sake, drunk by the household in the first three days |
| Nanakusa-gayu (七草粥) | January 7 | Rice porridge with seven spring herbs, to settle the stomach |
| Kagami mochi | January 11 | The offering rice cake, broken and eaten in sweet bean soup |
The two that matter most are the boxes and the soup. Osechi is the display, packed days ahead so nobody cooks during the holiday. Ozōni is the dish families actually argue about, because every region, and very nearly every household, makes it differently. In a 2022 survey by Kibun Foods of 7,015 married women, ozōni came out as the favourite New Year food at 47.0%, ahead of sweet chestnut kinton at 40.2% and black soybeans at 36.8%.
The seven herbs of nanakusa-gayu are fixed by tradition: seri, nazuna, gogyō, hakobera, hotokenoza, suzuna and suzushiro.
The kagami mochi closes the sequence. It sits on its stand from late December, dries hard, and on January 11 it is cracked open with a mallet and eaten in oshiruko (お汁粉), sweet red bean soup, so that the household shares the offering it made to the toshigami.
If You Are Visiting
- Book food and transport early. Trains from December 29 to January 3 are among the busiest of the year, and many restaurants close for the whole period. Convenience stores stay open and are the reliable fallback.
- Go to a temple on the night of the 31st. Many let members of the public strike the bell, sometimes with free numbered tickets handed out on the night.
- Expect quiet, not fireworks. Shibuya has a countdown, but it is the exception. The default sound of the year turning is a bronze bell heard from a few streets away.
Sources
- Calendar History, The Japanese Calendar, National Diet Library the November 1872 announcement and the switch to January 1, 1873
- Shōgatsu, Encyclopedia of Shinto, Kokugakuin University ōshōgatsu from December 13, koshōgatsu on the 15th
- Shōgatsu: Japanese New Year, Nippon.com Ganjitsu as the only national holiday, closures from December 29 to January 3
- Zōni: Japan's New Year Soul Food, Nippon.com the 2022 Kibun Foods survey and the east-west mochi split
- The Origins and Significance of Japan's New Year's Culture, Highlighting Japan, Government of Japan toshigami, toshidama and kazoedoshi
- National Holidays, Cabinet Office January 1 and the second Monday of January
- Flags wave at Itoman fishing port for Lunar New Year, Ryukyu Shimpo kyū shōgatsu in Okinawa
- Nagasaki Lantern Festival, Nagasaki City official tourism site Shinchi Chinatown origins, 15,000 lanterns, 2027 dates
- Yokohama Chinatown Shunsetsu, official Yokohama Chinatown site held since 1986
- Matsu no uchi, Nihon Daihyakka Zensho via Kotobank January 7 generally, January 15 in Kyoto and Osaka
- Sanganichi, Britannica Japan via Kotobank January 1 to 3, otoso and zōni
- Nanakusa-gayu, Kotobank the seven spring herbs of January 7
- Akemashite omedetō, Digital Daijisen via Kotobank the New Year greeting and its polite form
- Kagami biraki, Japan Kagami Mochi Association January 11, and the 15th, 20th or 4th regionally
FAQ
When is Japanese New Year celebrated?
Japan celebrates New Year on January 1 under the Gregorian calendar, having switched from the lunisolar calendar in 1873. The main holiday period, sanganichi (三が日), covers January 1 to 3, and most workplaces close from around December 29 until January 3. In the coming season, January 1, 2027 falls on a Friday.
What are the most important Japanese New Year traditions?
The core ones are ōsōji cleaning, kadomatsu decorations, toshikoshi soba on New Year’s Eve, the joya no kane bells at midnight, osechi ryōri and ozōni soup on January 1, otoshidama money for children, and hatsumōde, the first shrine visit. Almost all serve one purpose: closing the old year cleanly and receiving the toshigami.
What is the Japanese New Year deity?
The toshigami (年神), sometimes toshitokujin, is the deity of the incoming year, understood to visit each household bringing that year’s fortune and harvest. The kadomatsu at the gate gives it somewhere to alight, the shimenawa marks the house as purified, and the kagami mochi indoors is the offering left for it.
How long do Japanese New Year celebrations last?
The preparation runs from mid-December, the holiday itself covers January 1 to 3, and the decorated period, matsu no uchi, ends on January 7 in eastern Japan or January 15 in Kyoto and Osaka. Government offices close for six days, from December 29 to January 3. The season truly closes with the mid-January bonfires and Coming of Age Day, which in 2027 falls on Monday, January 11.
What do Japanese people eat at New Year?
Toshikoshi soba on New Year’s Eve, then osechi ryōri from January 1: tiered boxes of black soybeans, herring roe, rolled kelp, candied sardines, sweet chestnut paste, and simmered vegetables, each dish carrying a wish. Alongside them come ozōni (お雑煮), a mochi soup whose recipe changes by region, and on January 7 a herb porridge called nanakusa-gayu.
Is Japanese New Year the same as Chinese New Year?
No. Japan moved its New Year to January 1 when it adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1873, so the two now fall on different dates and the customs differ substantially. Lunar New Year is still marked in parts of Okinawa and in the Chinatowns of Yokohama and Nagasaki, where the Nagasaki Lantern Festival hangs about 15,000 lanterns. Japan does keep the twelve-animal zodiac cycle, which is why New Year cards carry that year’s animal. The 2027 sign is the Sheep, hitsuji (未).
Is Japanese New Year a public holiday?
Yes, though only one day of the core holiday is set by law: Ganjitsu (元日), January 1. Government offices and many businesses also close from December 29 to January 3, so many people get about six days off. Coming of Age Day, on the second Monday of January, is the season’s other national holiday, and in 2027 it falls on January 11.
What do Japanese people say at New Year?
From January 1 the greeting is akemashite omedetō gozaimasu (明けましておめでとうございます), usually followed by kotoshi mo yoroshiku onegai shimasu (今年もよろしくお願いします), “please be good to me again this year.” Friends shorten the pair to akeome, kotoyoro. On cards, the four characters kinga shinnen (謹賀新年) are the formal choice, covered in the guide to nengajō.
What does akemashite omedetou mean?
It literally means “congratulations on the opening,” with the year understood: akeru is the verb for a day dawning or a year beginning. The dictionary sense is a New Year greeting that celebrates having reached the new year safely. Say it only once the year has turned, from January 1, and add gozaimasu for anyone you would speak to politely.