Chuseok holiday dates from 2024 to 2036, and how the days off work

Chuseok falls on the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month, so its date in the ordinary calendar changes every year. In 2026 it is Friday 25 September, and South Korea is off from Thursday 24 to Sunday 27 September. In 2027 it is Wednesday 15 September, with 14 to 16 September as the holiday.

The dates on this page come from the lunar calendar converter run by the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI) and from the yearly holiday calendar, the wollyeok yohang (월력요항), that the Korea AeroSpace Administration publishes. For what families actually do over the three days, the food and the rites, there is a separate guide to Chuseok itself.

Chuseok dates from 2024 to 2036

These are the days of Chuseok itself. The public holiday always takes in the day before and the day after as well, so the three holiday days run from the day before the date shown to the day after it.

Chuseok 2026: 24 to 27 September

In 2026 Chuseok lands on a Friday. Thursday 24 and Saturday 26 September are the holiday days either side, and Sunday follows, which gives four days in a row for anyone on a Monday to Friday week.

There is no substitute day in 2026. Korean holiday rules give the Chuseok days a substitute only when one of them falls on a Sunday or on another public holiday. A Saturday does not qualify, so in 2026 the Saturday is simply lost.

Chuseok 2027 and the next holiday calendars

2027 is a midweek Chuseok with no weekend attached. The holiday list for 2028 will come out with that year’s calendar, and recent editions have appeared in June of the year before. 2028 is the one to watch: Chuseok falls on 3 October, which is also National Foundation Day. When two public holidays share a weekday, the rules add a substitute day after the break.

When is Chuseok in Korea, and why does the date move?

Korea’s holiday regulation fixes Chuseok at the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month, with the fourteenth and sixteenth as the days on either side. A lunar month starts at the new moon, so the fifteenth sits at or close to the full moon. KASI’s converter gives the moon’s age on Chuseok 2024 and 2025 as 14.4 and 14.7 days.

From one year to the next the date usually slips ten to twelve days earlier: 25 September 2026, then 15 September 2027. Then it jumps about eighteen or nineteen days later, whenever a leap month, yundal (윤달), has been added to the lunar year since the previous Chuseok. Between 2024 and 2036 KASI lists leap months in 2025, 2028, 2031, 2033 and 2036.

2033 is the odd one. Its leap month follows the eleventh month, after Chuseok has passed, so 2033 gets the earliest date in the table, 8 September, and the jump lands a year later, on 27 September 2034.

What the days off are for

Chuseok is one of Korea’s three major holidays, and the days off are family days. On the morning of Chuseok relatives gather at the main family house for charye, the memorial rite for their ancestors, and many visit and clear the family graves, a custom called seongmyo. The photograph at the top was taken at Seoul Station on 27 August 2013, when a crowd gathered there to reserve train seats for that year’s Chuseok.

Questions people ask

When was Chuseok in 2025? On Monday 6 October 2025. National Foundation Day on 3 October, the weekend, the three Chuseok days, a substitute day on 8 October and Hangeul Day on 9 October ran together into a seven day break, 3 to 9 October.

How long is Chuseok? Three public holidays by law: the day before, the day itself and the day after. How long the break feels depends on where the weekend falls and on whether a substitute day is added.

Is Chuseok on the same date every year? Not in the solar calendar. It is always the fifteenth of the eighth lunar month, which between 2024 and 2036 ranges from 8 September to 6 October.

What is Chuseok called in Korean? 추석, romanised Chuseok. It is also called 한가위, Hangawi, where han means big and gawi refers to the middle of the eighth month. In December 2023 the Cultural Heritage Administration listed Chuseok among five traditional holidays designated National Intangible Cultural Heritage.

Who decides the Chuseok holiday dates? The lunar date comes from the astronomical calendar KASI calculates. The days off follow the Regulations on Holidays of Government Offices, and the Korea AeroSpace Administration publishes each year’s full list, substitute days included, in advance.