Seollal 2027 Korea Guide: Dates, Closures, and Free Palace Days

Seollal, the Korean Lunar New Year, is the country's biggest holiday after Chuseok, and in some ways it is the bigger of the two: tens of millions of people travel to their families' hometowns over a few days. For a visitor it does three things at once. It fills every long-distance train and highway, it closes a large share of small businesses, and it opens the royal palaces for free. This guide covers the 2027 dates, what closes and what doesn't, and how to tell whether the holiday works for the trip being planned.

Seollal 2027: The Exact Dates

Seollal falls on Sunday, February 7, 2027. The official holiday is the day before, the day itself and the day after: Saturday, February 6 to Monday, February 8. Because the main day lands on a Sunday, the law adds a substitute holiday on the first working day after it, Tuesday, February 9. In practice the country is on holiday for four days, Saturday to Tuesday.

Chinese New Year falls on Saturday, February 6, 2027, one day earlier than Korea's. Both follow the same new moon, but it falls just before midnight in Beijing and just after midnight in Seoul, so the two calendars land on different days. Guides that list the Chinese date for Korea are a day off.

The holiday also overlaps Chinese Spring Festival week, one of the busiest times of the year for visitors from China. Seoul's shopping districts, Myeongdong in particular, are busier with tourists that week even as the rest of the city empties of residents.

The Travel Days Are the Edges, Not the Holiday

The worst days to be on a train or a highway are the ones at either end. The outbound rush starts on the evening of Friday, February 5, and peaks on the Saturday, and the return rush fills Monday and Tuesday, February 8 and 9. The days in between are quieter on the roads, but trains are still full.

Korail sells holiday trains in a separate pre-sale, run for its members, weeks before the usual one-month booking window. For Seollal 2026, which fell on February 17, that sale ran January 19 to 21 and was split by line, with the Gyeongbu line between Seoul and Busan on the last day. Most popular trains for the peak days are gone within that sale. The 2027 dates will be announced around the turn of the year. The Korea Rail Pass also has a blackout around Lunar New Year, so a pass doesn't open seats in that window. The KR Pass guide covers the blackout periods.

What Closes

Banks, government offices and immigration services close for the holiday: in 2027 that means Monday and Tuesday, February 8 and 9, on top of the weekend. Anything involving paperwork, from a bank errand to a visa matter, needs to happen before Friday, February 5 or after the holiday.

Small, owner-run restaurants, cafés and shops close too, often for longer than the official days, because the people running them are travelling to their own families. Traditional markets are the clearest case: even when a market stays open, many of its stalls are shut, especially on the day of Seollal itself. Many department stores and large supermarkets close for one day of the holiday and reopen the next.

The National Museum of Korea closes on the day of Seollal, one of its few closing days in the year, as the museum guide notes. It is open on the days either side.

What Stays Open — And the Free Palaces

Convenience stores keep normal hours, chain restaurants and franchise cafés mostly stay open, and large hotels run as usual. Areas that live on tourism, such as Myeongdong and Insadong, stay busier than residential neighbourhoods.

The part most guides miss is the palaces. For Seollal, the Korea Heritage Service opens Gyeongbokgung, Changdeokgung, Changgyeonggung and Deoksugung, along with Jongmyo Shrine and the Joseon royal tombs, free of charge for the whole holiday. In 2026 that ran from February 14 to 18, with the palaces open every day, including their usual closing days. Jongmyo, normally entered on a timed guided tour on most days, was open to walk around freely. Gyeongbokgung's gate guard ceremony runs at 10 AM and 2 PM as usual, and in 2026 the palace handed out a printed New Year picture to visitors after each one. The 2027 arrangements are announced shortly before the holiday, and free opening has been the pattern for years.

Palaces and folk museums also tend to run New Year programmes over the holiday: traditional games such as yutnori and jegichagi, and demonstrations of the customs families keep at home. Tteokguk, the sliced rice-cake soup eaten on New Year's morning, is on many restaurant menus around the holiday.

Seoul Empties, the Roads Fill

The two halves of the holiday pull in opposite directions. Inside Seoul it is quiet: millions of residents leave, traffic falls away, and outside the tourist districts the city feels like a long Sunday. A Seoul-based stay during those days is one of the easier ways to see the city, with free palaces and short queues.

Outside Seoul it is the reverse. Highway journeys that normally take three or four hours can take twice that or more on the peak days, and intercity buses and trains fill. Jeju is busy too, since flights to the island fill with Korean families on holiday, and car rental there gets scarce.

Should You Travel During Seollal?

It depends on how the trip is built. A trip that stays in Seoul across February 6 to 9 works well: quiet streets, free palaces and none of the transport problems, as long as the closed small restaurants and market stalls aren't the point of the visit.

A multi-city trip that moves between Seoul, Busan, Gyeongju or Jeju between Friday, February 5 and Tuesday, February 9 is the one to avoid. Those are the five worst days of the year to change cities, and the trains on them are sold before most foreign travellers can book.

The fix for a longer trip that overlaps the holiday is to sequence around it rather than skip it. Put the Seoul days over the holiday itself, and place the intercity legs before February 5 or after February 9. Gyeongju and Busan in the week after Seollal are back to normal, and the winter prices that make February one of the cheapest months to visit Korea hold.

If Seollal Doesn't Fit: The Rest of Winter

February sits at the end of Korea's winter, which runs cold and dry, with Seoul often below freezing at night and clear skies most days. The winter guide covers the season's two big draws, the Hwacheon ice festival in January and skiing in Pyeongchang. For a trip whose dates are still open, the best time to visit Korea guide sets winter against the other three seasons.