Songkran 2027 in Thailand: Dates, Rules and Where to Go

Songkran 2027 falls on Tuesday 13 to Thursday 15 April. It is the Thai New Year, three days of national holiday, and Thailand marks it with water. At the temple and at home that means a little scented water poured over a Buddha image or an elder's hands. In Chiang Mai, by mid-afternoon, it can mean a bowl of moat water over your head from someone you have never met.

Go if your clients would enjoy being part of it. Anyone who would hate being soaked by a stranger is better off in another week.

For everyone else, what shapes the trip is where they are standing at two in the afternoon. In 2026 the big street zones got going around midday and ran into the night, while the mornings belonged to the temples. So plan the dry parts on purpose: sightseeing and transfers in the morning, a long lunch indoors, and afternoons that are allowed to get wet.

Cover: A water fight beside a tuk-tuk in Chiang Mai on 14 April 2017. Photo: CEphoto, Uwe Aranas, CC BY-SA 4.0. All the photographs were taken at earlier festivals, except the khao chae, which was photographed outside one.

The dates, and the towns that keep their own

All three days are on the Bank of Thailand's 2027 holiday list, issued in August 2026, so banks will be shut from Tuesday to Thursday.

Falling midweek, Songkran has no weekend attached. A nine-day break, Saturday 10 to Sunday 18 April, would need extra days off on Monday 12 and Friday 16. None has been announced and none was added in 2026, but such decisions have come anywhere from two months to more than a year ahead, so this can still change.

Most of the 2027 detail comes later: in 2026 the events calendar came out at the end of March and the safety rules in the days before the festival. Every venue, time and rule below is 2026's unless we say otherwise.

The astrologers keep their own clock, to the second. In 2026 the Royal Household's Brahmin astrologers put Maha Songkran, the sun's move into Aries, at 10:34:35 on Tuesday 14 April. The weekday picks the year's Nang Songkran, one of the seven daughters of Thao Kabilaphrom, and a Tuesday meant Nang Raksasa Devi, who stands on a boar, holding a trident and a bow.

Not every town keeps to 13 to 15 April: some start early, and some carry on well after the nationwide peak ends on the 15th.

Pattaya's late date is the useful one for a beach stay. Chon Buri's Wan Lai moves town by town: in 2026 it ran from Bang Saen on the 16th through Naklua on the 18th and Pattaya on the 19th to Bang Saray on the 20th. Time the stay to catch it, or to miss it.

The quiet Songkran

Songkran starts at the temple, and early. Families take food to the monks, pour water over Buddha images and over the hands of their elders, and carry sand in through the temple gate. This is the half a street-only trip misses, and the easiest half to build into a programme: it suits the mornings, before the heat.

A monk with a bowl of holy water for visitors at Wat Pho, Bangkok, on 15 April 2025. Photo: Chainwit., CC BY 4.0.

Bathing a Buddha image, song nam phra, is done with nam ob, Thai perfumed water. In Chiang Mai, villagers make the bathing water from turmeric and soap pods with flower pollen, then add the perfume. In 2026 Bangkok brought its Phra Buddha Sihing from the Phra Nakhon National Museum to a pavilion at City Hall, by the Giant Swing, and anyone could bathe it from 12 to 14 April.

Chiang Mai's own Phra Buddha Sihing left its hall at Wat Phra Singh at 8.30 am on 13 April 2026. Later that day it went in procession with other important images between San Pa Khoi junction and the temple, with a ceremony to bathe them.

A Songkran parade in Tak, northern Thailand, on the first day of the festival in 2017. Photo: PumpkinSky, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Rod nam dam hua is the family part. Younger relatives pour scented water over their elders' hands and ask for a blessing, by older custom bringing new cloth, flowers, incense and candles. In the Lanna north it belongs to Wan Phraya Wan, traditionally 15 April, after the morning at the temple. It is a family rite, so do not sell it as an inclusion. The custom goes public in Chiang Mai, where a dam hua procession for the provincial governor ran on 18 April 2026.

Then there is the sand. Worshippers carry a little of the temple's sand away on their feet all year, so at Songkran they bring some back and heap it into sand chedis, small pagodas: a debt to the monastery, repaid in sand. In the north the chedis are topped with flags and with mai kham sali, props for the Bodhi tree. Chiang Mai held a sand chedi contest at Tha Phae Gate on 12 April 2026, and on the afternoon of the 14th the sand and props went into the temples.

Bathing a Buddha image at Wat Pho, Bangkok, 15 April 2025: Chainwit., CC BY 4.0. Sand chedis in the courtyard on the same day: Chainwit., CC BY 4.0.

UNESCO, which added Songkran to its heritage list in 2023, reads all this water as cleansing, reverence and good fortune.

The wet Songkran

Silom Road, Bangkok, on the evening of 14 April 2025. Photo: Chainwit., CC BY 4.0.

By early afternoon the other festival is under way. In Bangkok, Silom Road closed to traffic from 12 to 14 April 2026, with screening gates at each end, and the district office counted more than 650,000 people over the three days. The splashing ran from around midday into the evening, and at 9 pm the road went back to the cars.

Khao San Road kept to the national days, 13 to 15 April, with splashing from midday to 10 pm and the shops open as usual. TAT's family guide warned that it "may be too intense for those with little ones", which is putting it gently.

The national flagship, the Maha Songkran World Water Festival, took over Benjakitti Park from 11 to 15 April 2026 with a parade, regional zones and a drone show. It was at Sanam Luang in 2025, so do not assume the venue. Across the city the water stopped at 10 pm, so the cleaning crews could get in.

Between the zones, the 2026 police rules tell you what the roads look like: nobody riding on the edge or the roof of a pickup, and no throwing water at speeding vehicles.

A flower float at Bangkok's Songkran festival in Lumphini Park, April 2019: PEAK99, CC BY 3.0. A pickup in the thick of it in Ayutthaya, 13 April 2013: JJ Harrison, CC BY-SA 3.0.

Chiang Mai fights with its moat. The municipality had the water tested on 10 April 2026 and rated it good, and irrigation kept the ammunition topped up at 17,000 cubic metres a day. Safety floats went in along every section, with municipal police, firefighters and rescue crews standing by, and Tha Phae Road became a walking-street splash zone for the three days. Anyone on foot near the moat in the afternoon should expect to take part.

Beside the moat in Chiang Mai, 14 April 2017: CEphoto, Uwe Aranas, CC BY-SA 4.0. A Chiang Mai street on 13 April 2012: Kazuhiro Nakamura, CC BY 2.0. A pickup taking a soaking the day before: Kazuhiro Nakamura, CC BY 2.0.

The 2026 rules, and who not to splash

Bowls and ordinary water guns were fine in 2026. Anything more ambitious was not: police banned high-pressure devices, PVC-pipe cannons and modified guns included, with up to two years in prison or a 4,000-baht fine. Powder and paint were banned in the screened zones and hot spots such as Silom and Khao San, and Bangkok advised against water that is too cold in the heat, without banning it.

Alcohol was kept out of the Silom zone and Siam Square. National rules limited sales to 11 am to 2 pm and 5 pm to midnight, never to anyone under 20, and made drinking in a vehicle on a public road an offence. Revealing clothing could be prosecuted as public indecency, with a fine of up to 5,000 baht, and police warned that sexual harassment under cover of the crowd could bring up to ten years in prison.

The etiquette is simpler. Monks, anyone on a motorcycle and pregnant women are off limits, and so is anyone who plainly does not want to play. In 2026 police added anyone in a work uniform or carrying electronics, and asked for consent first. The usual ceasefire starts as the sun goes down, though Bangkok's official zones ran later.

The white paste on faces is din sor pong, a herbal remedy since King Narai's reign and part of the Songkran tradition. Where it is allowed, ask before applying it, especially with children, and keep it away from the eyes. A National Artist summed up the etiquette at the Ministry of Culture's blessing that April: respect each other, and do not splash the unwilling.

Din sor pong in Hat Yai, 13 April 2016. Photo: John Ragai, CC BY 2.0.

Choosing a base

Bangkok suits clients who want to choose their moments: temples in the morning, a screened street zone in the afternoon. Its rail lines kept running, with more than a million trips on 14 April 2026. April highs average 35.7°C.

Chiang Mai is where we would send clients who want all of Songkran: the procession, the sand chedis, the temple mornings and the moat. It also asks the most of them. Its April highs average 36.7°C, a degree above Bangkok's, and the city sits at the tail of the northern burning season: on 14 April 2026 its PM2.5 reading was at the red level. Our Chiang Mai travel guide covers the city beyond the festival.

Phuket is the beach option: besides the water festival at Patong Beach and Baan Mai Khao, there was a street celebration on Dibuk Road on 13 April 2026. Its April is a little cooler than Bangkok's, with an average high of 34.2°C, and wetter, with about 12 rainy days.

Somewhere quieter is mostly a matter of hours and hotels. TAT's 2026 calendar listed 67 major Songkran events around the country, so the water is rarely far away; for a client who wants to stay dry, a hotel with its own grounds matters more than the town.

Transport, rooms and closures

The roads deserve the most respect. Over the "seven dangerous days" of Songkran 2026, 10 to 16 April, the official count was 242 road deaths, and in the final day's report motorcycles were involved in almost two-thirds of accidents. We would keep clients off motorbikes for the whole holiday, and long transfers off the first and last days of the break. More than 2.6 million vehicles left Bangkok between 10 and 14 April 2026, and the highways department expected the return peak on the 15th. Our transfer-time guide gives normal road times; add slack on these dates.

Domestic flights take the growth. For 10 to 19 April 2026 the airport operator AOT forecast domestic passengers at its six airports up 9.3%, and international traffic down, which it blamed on the conflict in the Middle East; 2026 was not a normal year.

The trains sold out. Tickets for the State Railway's special trains went on sale on 27 March, and within days the railway reported every class booked, so do not count on the train to Chiang Mai without tickets in hand. It added four more for the trip back to Bangkok on 15 April, one of them from Chiang Mai, and Transport Co. planned 1,200 extra coaches for 9 to 19 April.

Most of the travellers are Thai: for 11 to 15 April 2026, TAT projected about 6 million domestic trips against about 500,000 international arrivals. The airports, the railway and the coach company published their holiday plans only one to three weeks ahead, so do not wait for extra capacity: hold domestic seats, rooms and road transfers alongside the international flights.

Banks are the clearest closure: stand-alone branches shut for all three days in 2026, while branches in shopping malls usually kept mall hours. The Grand Palace lists its normal hours, 8.30 am to 4.30 pm daily, and no Songkran closure, though royal ceremonies can change them. For anything else that matters, such as a restaurant or a workshop, confirm the actual day.

Vietnam, Cambodia and Easter

Vietnam's Hung Kings Commemoration Day falls on Friday 16 April 2027, the day after Songkran ends. A government draft would make 16 to 18 April a three-day weekend and Friday 30 April to Monday 3 May a four-day break, but the October 2026 decision that fixed Tet and National Day did not cover either. A Thailand and Vietnam route can put Songkran inside the trip. If Vietnam comes after it, the crossing may land on a Vietnamese long weekend, so check domestic flights there before fixing the order.

Cambodia's Khmer New Year ran 14 to 16 April in 2026. The 2027 holiday sub-decree, signed in September 2026, gives it three days again, and calendar sites expect the same dates.

Easter Sunday is 28 March 2027, about two weeks before Songkran, so Holy Week and Songkran do not overlap.

What to pack and tell clients

Pack to be soaked by lunchtime: quick-drying clothes, a spare shirt, sandals that can get wet, sunscreen to reapply and a sealed waterproof bag for the phone and wallet. Leave anything valuable at the hotel. Modest clothes keep clients on the right side of both the custom and the fine.

The heat matters more than the water. On 10 April 2026 the weather office warned of heatstroke, with up to 42°C forecast in the hottest provinces, and advised six to eight glasses of water a day and staying out of strong sun from 11 am to 3 pm. That is when the street zones get going, so build in shade and that long lunch.

Armed and ready in Chiang Mai, 14 April 2017: CEphoto, Uwe Aranas, CC BY-SA 4.0. Scented water for bathing a Buddha image, April 2018: Index Librorum Permissorum, CC0.

Lunch is the place for the season's own dish. Khao chae is rice served in scented iced water. For the Mon it is "Songkran rice", eaten once a year at the festival; a Mon lady of the royal court made it a palace dish, and it was a favourite Songkran offering to monks. In April heat it makes a lot of sense.

Khao chae at a Bangkok shop, photographed outside the festival in 2021. Photo: Streets of Food, CC BY 2.0.

Five days around Songkran

One way to shape it: Bangkok's temples first, then Chiang Mai for the procession and the moat. The timings follow the 2026 programme.

Leave on Friday 16 April, or carry on north. Our Northern Thailand Discovery route opens with three nights in Chiang Mai; start it on 12 April, add a fourth night, and these days sit inside it, with the hills and Chiang Rai to follow. Send us the brief with your dates, group size and which half of Songkran matters more to your clients, and we can build the hotels, transfers and days around it.

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