Vietnamese Lunar Calendar and Date Converter
A month-by-month Vietnamese lunar calendar (âm lịch) for Vietnam time, UTC+7. Select any day for its stem-branch, Yellow or Black Path status, day officer, lunar mansion, solar term and auspicious hours, or convert dates in either direction.
Loading today’s almanac…
Yellow Path (auspicious) dayRed outline: todayRed lunar date: first day of a lunar month
How the Vietnamese lunar calendar works
Vietnam runs on the Gregorian calendar for daily life, but festivals, death anniversaries, weddings and many family decisions still follow the lunar calendar. It is lunisolar: every month starts on the day of the astronomical new moon, so months have 29 or 30 days, and the full moon falls on or near the 15th. Twelve lunar months are about eleven days short of a solar year, so a leap month is added when needed to keep Lunar New Year in late January or February.
Alongside the months runs the solar framework of the 24 solar terms (tiết khí), such as Start of Spring or Winter Solstice, which follow the sun and guide farming. The month used for almanac purposes changes at these terms rather than at the new moon.
Each day, month and year carries a stem-branch pair from the sixty-day cycle. From the day’s branch and the solar month come the twelve day officers (Establish, Remove, Full, Balance, Stable, Initiate, Destruction, Danger, Success, Receive, Open, Close), the Yellow or Black Path spirit and the six auspicious hours. A separate 28-day cycle of lunar mansions (nhị thập bát tú) adds one more layer. The almanac also flags the animal that clashes with the day, and folk taboo days: Tam Nương (lunar days 3, 7, 13, 18, 22 and 27) and Nguyệt Kỵ (days 5, 14 and 23).
This calendar uses the astronomical algorithm published by Hồ Ngọc Đức, based on Jean Meeus’s Astronomical Algorithms, with all times set to UTC+7. It works for 1900–2100. Vietnamese readers can use the full lịch vạn niên.
Frequently asked questions
How do I convert a Gregorian date to the Vietnamese lunar date?
Use the converter above: choose “Solar → Lunar”, enter the day, month and year, and the calendar jumps to that date with its lunar day, month and stem-branch. For the reverse, choose “Lunar → Solar” and tick “leap month” if the lunar date falls in a leap month.
What is a leap month?
To stay in step with the seasons, the lunar calendar inserts an extra month about seven times every nineteen years. It repeats the number of the month before it. Recent and upcoming examples: 2023 (leap 2nd month), 2025 (leap 6th month), 2028 (leap 5th month), 2031 (leap 3rd month).
What is a Yellow Path (hoàng đạo) day?
Each day is governed by one of twelve spirits. Six are benevolent — Azure Dragon, Bright Hall, Golden Coffer, Golden Hall, Jade Hall and Life Commander — and make the day a Yellow Path or auspicious day. The other six make it a Black Path (hắc đạo) day.
What are the auspicious hours?
The day is divided into twelve two-hour periods named after the animals, starting with the Rat hour at 23:00–01:00. Six of them are auspicious each day, depending on the day’s branch. They are highlighted in green in the daily almanac.
Is the Vietnamese lunar calendar the same as the Chinese one?
The rules are the same, but Vietnam calculates new moons and solar terms in UTC+7, China in UTC+8. When a new moon falls just after midnight in China, the two calendars start that month on different days — for example Lunar New Year 2007 (17 February in Vietnam, 18 February in China).
More tools: Lunar New Year 2027 · Zodiac sign by birth date · 2027 forecast