The 2026 Taiwan Lantern festival has returned for its 37th year, in Chiayi from 3 March to 15 March 2026 held at various locations near Chiayi HSR station including the Southern Branch of the National Palace Museum, Taizi Boulevard, and Chiayi County Government Building Plaza.
We’ve been to this year’s festival and it is brilliant and well organised, including all the free shuttle buses from Chiayi HSR station and Chiayi TRA station – plus the performances are amazing especially the Rain Horse Light Show and the French Planète Vapeur White Horse acrobatics (a jaw-dropping live display).
After a successful and record breaking 2025 Taiwan Lantern Festival last year in Taoyuan which attracted over 20 million people, this year’s Chiayi 2026 Taiwan Lantern Festival is bigger and better than ever before – they have already reported over 2 million visitors in one day alone in the first week!
We were lucky enough to attend both the 2024 Taiwan Lantern Festival in Tainan, plus the 2025 Taiwan Lantern Festival in Taoyuan and both were such an illuminating spectacle!
Better still, the Taiwan Lantern Festival is free to visit and one of the best Taiwan events in March 2026, taking place just after the Lunar New Year in Taiwan.
This article was originally published on 14 December 2024. All images on this article are from previous years Lantern festivals.
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Taiwan Lantern Festival dates 2026 (Chiayi)
The Taiwan Lantern Festival runs from 3 to 15 March 2026 in Chiayi – no tickets or admission fee is required.
A special opening ceremony attended by local and national dignitaries (and hopefully the Taiwan bear tourism mascot!) took place on 3 March 2026 between 1.30pm and 3.30pm on the Jiapu highway section outside Chiayi County Government plaza.
Also on opening night, there were opening ceremony performances from 4.30pm to 7pm including Air Force bands, circus performers, the Lotte cheerleading team and musicians from countries such as Japan and Korea plus local Chiayi and Taiwan artists.
The Taiwan Lantern Festival usually lights up nightly from mid afternoon and runs until late in the evening – we visited the 2026 festival one weekday afternoon from about 4.30pm onwards when it was dusk and already it was very busy. The Chiayi lanterns look even better when dark.
How to get to the Chiayi Taiwan Lantern Festival 2026
The Taiwan Lantern Festival 2026 takes place in Chiayi across various parts of the city including the County Government District, the Southern Branch of the National Palace Museum, and the corridor from Taizi Boulevard to the plaza in front of the Chiayi County Government building.
This is a great location near to National Palace Museum (Southern Branch) and it is easy to go from Taipei to Chiayi on the Taiwan High Speed Rail.
It takes around 1.5 hours from Taipei Main Station HSR, 30 minutes from Kaohsiung HSR station or 17 minutes from Tainan HSR station to Chiayi.
How far is the 2026 Chiayi Lantern Festival site from Chiayi HSR station?
It is around 4km from the station to the main Chiayi lantern festival and shuttle buses are available at Chiayi HSR station (more info below) or it is a 9 minute drive or 45 minute walk between the two.
Below is a site map of the 2026 Taiwan Chiayi Lantern Festival:
Taiwan Lantern Festival – Free Shuttle Buses
For anyone planning on going to the national Taiwan Lantern Festival between now and 15 March, just to say the free shuttle buses from Chiayi HSR station are regular and well organised (but it may differ at peak periods). And some of the buses are well ‘bling’ too 😄
To get a free Chiayi lantern festival bus, take exit 3 from Chiayi HSR station and follow the signs (in English too) – the bus stand is a 3 minute walk from the station.
The main Taiwan lantern festival site in Chiayi is around 4km from the station.
2026 Taiwan Lantern festival shuttle buses run 1.30pm to 10.30pm on weekdays and from 9.30am to 10.30pm on weekends and holidays – the free buses operate every few minutes, from 3 to 15 March 2026.
We visited on a weekday and were able to utilise the free shuttles without a long wait time, however weekends will be much busier.
How to get to Chiayi
Chiayi in southwest Taiwan has two main train stations – Chiayi Station (for local / TRA trains) and Chiayi High Speed Railway Station.
Note the HSR station is a little way away from downtown and most of the central Chiayi accommodation.
From Taipei to Chiayi, the High Speed Railway train from Taipei Main Station takes around 1 hour 27 minutes (5 stops), whilst the local ‘Tze-Chiang Limited Express’ from Taipei takes around 3 hours 30 minutes.
Chiayi is also easily accessible by train from Kaohsiung, Tainan and Taichung.
This year, we jumped on a 23 minute high speed rail train from Taichung HSR station and bought our train tickets last minute (with reserved seats) for NT$395 each.
You could also potentially combine a trip to the 2026 Taiwan Lantern festival with a visit to Alishan – check out our guide to riding on the bus and booking tickets here or our Alishan itinerary.
High speed rail fares from Taipei to Chiayi usually cost around NT$1,045 one way (around £26 or $35 USD).
Please note you cannot use an EasyCard to pay for your HSR train tickets in Taiwan (which is a shame as they have so many cool EasyCard designs).
Check out discounted Taiwan High Speed Rail tickets for foreigners only on KK Day and Klook.
You might like – 15 best day trips from Taipei including Wulai, Beitou, Keelung, Jiufen and Tamsui
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Taiwan Lantern Festival 2026 – what to expect
Opened on 3 March 2026, the almost two week Taiwan Lantern Festival in Chiayi will welcome millions of visitors from all over Taiwan and overseas tourists – on the busiest day in 2026, it welcomed 2 million visitors. It is one of the biggest lantern festivals in the world, which usually occurs just after the Lunar New Year.
This year’s 2026 Taiwan Lantern Festival theme is “Glow with Taiwan, Light Up Chiayi,” with 16 themed zones and 12 giant “must-see” attractions and installations.
There are also hundreds of amazing ‘competition lanterns’ made by Taiwan and local Chiayi groups. These are excellent and many feature moving parts like miniature Alishan Forest Railway carriages.
One of most exciting lanterns in 2026 is the “Glow of Alishan,” a huge 20 metre plus immersive lantern complete with a light and sound show. Personally, we thought this was pretty poor and really rather boring – the centerpiece last year in 2025 was better.
Every day of the 2026 Taiwan lantern festival, there is entertainment and performances on the main stage and around the site from 6pm to 9pm.
At this year’s 2026 Taiwan lantern festival, we caught two amazing performances – the Rain Horse Light Show (great for kids with rain and fire stunts and the French Planète Vapeur White Horse acrobatics). The latter was especially amazing – kind of like War Horse but bigger, better and with amazing performances – it stole the show for us!
A TEAM TAIWAN Grand Parade and special opening ceremony attended by local and national dignitaries (and hopefully the Taiwan bear tourism mascot!) took place on 3 March 2026 from 1.30pm to 3.30pm.
On the weekends across the Chiayi skyline, a large-scale drone light show features dozens of drones followed by a fun fireworks display.
We can hand on heart say this is one of Taiwan’s best events and we loved the 2026 Taiwan Lantern Festival so much.
The Chiayi lantern festival has lanterns big and small plus many attractions like Technology Zone (the queue was too big for us), a souvenir stamp rally plus a Super Mario / Nintendo gaming area.
Many of Taiwan’s other cities and regions will be installing their own lanterns – the great thing about this Taiwan event is that it is the national Taiwan Lantern Festival and it changes its location every year, so all cities get a chance to host it.
We love big lanterns
At this year’s 2026 Taiwan Lantern Festival, there are lanterns of all shapes and sizes appearing featuring all your favorite cartoon characters plus historical displays.
The famous Formosa bear, Oh Bear, also features heavily amongst the lantern displays, as the annual Taipei Lantern Festival is organised by Taiwan Tourism.
Another fantastic thing about the lantern festivals is that whilst many of the displays are done by professionals and big corporations or tourist boards (likely costing a lot of money), local community and school groups are also encouraged to create lanterns to go on display.
Other things to do
At this year’s Taiwan Lantern Festival, there are immersive installations plus playgrounds for children to enjoy.
There are live music and dance groups who have curated performance pieces to coincide with the lantern festival theme.
As well as static lanterns, there is usually a light show that is repeated at regular intervals across the evening.
A large number of Taiwanese food trucks and food kiosks will be at the festival, akin to a Taiwan night market – from stinky tofu to steamed buns, you won’t go hungry!
What the Taiwan National Lantern Festival isn’t
One thing to mention – we run a Taiwan Travel Tips (TTT) Facebook group and a few people seem to get this confused with a lantern release (like the Pingxi Lantern Festival).
If you want to release an actual lantern, read on for where you can do this…
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Other Taiwan Lantern Festival events in 2026
Taiwan Lantern Festival isn’t the only Taiwan lantern event in March 2026 or after Lunar New Year.
Pingxi Sky Lantern Festival & Mass Release 2026
We love exploring the Pingxi, especially Shifen waterfall and Houtong Cat Village.
Every year, a mass lantern release takes place along the Pingxi line (usually in Shifen at the Shifen Lantern Release Square or Pingxi Junior High School).
The 2026 Pingxi Lantern Festival and mass lantern release dates are 27 February 2026 and 3 March 2026.
Here at the Pingxi Lantern Festival 2026, thousands of lanterns are released across both nights and the whole Pingxi sky lights up in unison. You can write messages of good luck, prosperity and wishes on your lanterns before watching them whoosh into the sky.
Please also note you can release lanterns on the Pingxi railway line along Shifen Old Street every day of the year but it is not a mass release and it does not take place at night.
Check out our guide to the Pingxi Line and its lanterns here >
Book your day-time Shifen Old Street lantern release with KK Day and Klook (over 10k booked).
Taipei Lantern Festival 2026
Much smaller than the national lantern festival, Taipei’s own version is celebrated after Lunar New Year and the 2026 Taipei Lantern Festival in Ximending and at Taipei Expo Park will take place from 25 February 2026 to 15 March 2026 – no tickets or admission is required.
The Taipei Lantern Festival usually lights up nightly from dusk and runs until the early hours – many of the lantern displays get turned off around midnight. In 2026, there are special Transformers and PopMart themed lanterns in Taipei amongst many others.
A short walk from both the Beimen and Ximen MRT Stations, the Taipei Lantern festival 2026 will likely run from outside Beimen MRT Station all the way to Nishi Honganji Temple in Ximending, Zhongzheng District, along Zhonghua Road.
Read our full guide to the Taipei Lantern Festival here >
Other small lantern festivals in Taiwan are usually held in bigger cities like Hualien and Taichung.
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