Yi Peng 2026: Chiang Mai's Lantern Festival, Night by Night

Yi Peng 2026 runs from Monday 23 to Wednesday 25 November in Chiang Mai. Tuesday 24 November is Loy Krathong, with the moon full at 9.53 pm, and the grand krathong procession follows on the Wednesday. Sky lanterns may go up on the evenings of the 24th and 25th, from 7 pm to 1 am, at permitted sites outside the city.

That last condition shapes the whole trip. The old city, the riverside and every hotel in Mueang Chiang Mai district sit inside a zone where lanterns are banned outright, festival nights included. So Yi Peng happens in two places. In town it is a festival of light at street level: clay lamps, hanging lanterns, krathongs on the Ping and a parade of lit floats. The sky full of lanterns that sells the trip belongs to ticketed events in the countryside, in districts such as Mae On, San Sai and Doi Saket.

The airport sets the rest. In 2025, as in 2023, Chiang Mai stopped flying at 7 pm on both lantern nights. Fly in early, fly out on the 26th, and decide now which night goes to the lanterns.

Cover: A mass sky-lantern release at Lanna Dhutanga Sathan, near Mae Jo, outside Chiang Mai, in 2011. Photo: Mark Fischer, CC BY-SA 2.0. All the photographs were taken before the 2026 festival.

The dates for 2026

Chiang Mai Municipality announced the three days and the procession date in September, and the provincial governor's meeting on 7 October repeated the lantern hours. Venues, start times and the parade route had not been published when we checked on 15 October. Last year the municipality's programme came out nearly three weeks before the festival and the parade details later still, so expect this year's in early November.

Loy Krathong is not a public holiday: the 24th is an ordinary working Tuesday.

Paper lanterns lit in Chiang Mai for Loy Krathong, November 2015. Photo: Visions of Domino, CC BY 2.0.

What the festival is for

Yi Peng is the full moon of the second month in the old Lanna calendar of northern Thailand. Yi means two and peng means full moon. That Lanna month matches the twelfth month of the central Thai calendar, which is why Yi Peng and Loy Krathong share a night.

The older customs are about light at ground level and merit at the temple. Temples, and some households, build forest-gate arches from banana stalks, sugarcane and coconut fronds to welcome Prince Vessantara, the Buddha in a past life. People light phang prathip, small clay oil lamps, at homes and temples, and hang paper lanterns in temple grounds. Temples hold the Tang Tham Luang, a reading of the Vessantara story. At Wat Ket the full reading has run from sunrise on the full-moon day until midnight, and listeners hold that whoever hears all of it in one day will be reborn in the time of Metteyya, the Buddha still to come.

Clay lamps on temple steps in Chiang Mai, November 2024: Leung Kwok Tung Ktleung, Pexels License. Monks seated among candles under lanterns at a Chiang Mai temple, November 2015: Deba Prasad Roy, CC0. Hanging lanterns in Chiang Mai by day: Mandy H, Unsplash License.

Floating a krathong came north later, from central Thailand. The Lanna offering for the river is the sapao, a little junk that villagers build together at the temple and load with offerings and household goods. They float it on the evening of Yi Peng, and in the old custom poor families waited out on the river to take what it carried, a form of almsgiving. How old the sky lanterns are depends on whom you ask. A Chiang Mai University study of the Wat Ket neighbourhood describes their release as a local adaptation, while the organiser of the big CAD release in Mae On calls it an ancient Lanna tradition.

In the city: lamps, river and parade

Most of what happens in town is free, and most of it is on foot. The 2025 programme centred on Tha Phae Gate, Tha Phae Road, the Mae Kha canal and the Ping River, where the municipality set aside 17 piers for floating krathongs, with security staff on duty. On the eve of that festival, the Visit Lanna Association lit tens of thousands of clay lamps at the four corners of the old city walls at the same moment. No 2026 date for that has been announced.

The parade is the set piece. On the last night of the 2025 festival, 31 lit floats left Tha Phae Gate at 6.30 pm, ran down Tha Phae Road and turned into Praisani Road to finish at the municipal offices. In 2024 the floats made that turn at the western end of Nawarat Bridge. For 2026 only the date is fixed: Wednesday 25 November.

Do not judge this year's look by last year's photographs. The 2025 festival fell in the mourning period for Queen Sirikit, the Queen Mother, so the municipality toned down the decorations and the floats and dropped the performances that usually travel with the parade.

A float in a Loy Krathong parade in Chiang Mai: Farida Tania, Unsplash License. Chiang Mai Municipality's sign in the parade: Farida Tania, Unsplash License. The municipality's Yi Peng display: Farida Tania, Unsplash License. A Chiang Mai bridge hung with lanterns on Loy Krathong night: Maurice Gerhardt, Unsplash License.

The old city fills up. Thai Post described the crowds on Loy Krathong night 2025 as overflowing, and in 2024 the municipality warned that parking in the centre might run short. Expect a car to get you only part of the way.

For the krathong itself, choose banana trunk and leaves. The Royal Thai Police warned in 2025 against foam, plastic and bread krathongs, which pollute waterways. After the 2024 festival, the clean-up on the Ping collected 25 tonnes of krathongs and rubbish.

Leaf krathongs on the Ping River in Chiang Mai, November 2014: Jorge Láscar, CC BY 2.0. Lamps lit in Chiang Mai on Loy Krathong night: Maurice Gerhardt, Unsplash License.

Where the lanterns can go up

The rule has two layers. The province allows sky lanterns and fireworks on two evenings only, 24 and 25 November, from 7 pm to 1 am the next morning, plus smoke lanterns between 10 am and noon on the 24th. Those hours apply only where release is allowed at all.

Around the airport and under its flight path, release is banned on every day of the year. In the 2025 provincial notice that zone covered the whole of Mueang Chiang Mai and Hang Dong districts and parts of Saraphi, San Sai, Mae Rim and San Pa Tong. For 2026 the province says its existing announcement still applies. In September the Mueang district office asked for no lanterns at all in the city, and for hotels to warn their guests. Outside the zone, every release needs a permit from the district office, and in 2025 applications were due 15 to 30 days ahead, depending on the area.

The 2025 notice put the penalty for releasing a lantern without a permit, or inside the zone, at up to five years in prison, a fine of up to 200,000 baht, or both. If the lantern starts a fire, the prison term can reach seven years. A lantern lit on a hotel roof or a riverbank in town is exactly that offence.

Lanterns that come down near the airport are a hazard of their own. The airport raised its runway inspections from six a day to eight in 2025 to clear them.

The ticketed lantern releases

The big releases are private events in the districts around the city, sold by ticket. The 2025 permit applications show where: the largest sites were in San Sai, Mae On and Doi Saket. Three 2026 events had dates and published details by mid-October.

CAD's ticket sellers publish the fullest schedule. On it, shuttles leave the Chiang Mai International Exhibition and Convention Centre from 1 pm, the top two tiers leave from MAYA mall, and the ride takes about 40 minutes. Dinner is at 6.30 pm, the lanterns go up together at 8.15 pm, and the evening ends at 8.45 pm. Every tier includes two lanterns and a krathong, and alcohol and smoking are banned on site.

The terms depend on who sells the ticket, and several websites do. One labels its tickets official, sells every ticket as final and lets children aged 7 and under in free on a parent's lap. Another refunds 80% more than two months ahead, 50% a month or two ahead and nothing from 25 October, lets children aged 8 and under in free, and admits one tour guide free for every ten tickets, though not to the dinner or the release area. On 15 October the first listed every tier as out of stock. Book each guest in their own name, since that second seller warns that IDs may be checked against tickets, and keep the seller's terms with the booking.

Lanna Dhutanga Sathan, near Mae Jo, was a permitted release site in 2025. For 2026 we found it only on resellers' pages, with no word from an organiser.

Every lantern comes down somewhere. The CAD organiser says its lanterns land within four or five kilometres and that it pays collectors 3 baht for each one brought back.

A sky lantern in flight: sayan Nath, Unsplash License. A lantern held until its flame can lift it: Naro K, Pexels License. Lanterns and fireworks at a festival in Chiang Mai: Naro K, Pexels License.

Flights on lantern nights

Evening flights on 24 and 25 November are the ones to avoid. The airport had not published its 2026 schedule when we checked, and last year's appeared only on 31 October, five days before the first lantern night. The pattern is steady:

Land on the 23rd or early on the 24th, fly out on the 26th, and leave room for the traffic: the airport warned in 2025 that roads around it might be heavy on festival nights.

Rooms and weather

Rooms go early. Two weeks before the 2025 festival, TAT's Chiang Mai office put bookings at about 91%. For the 2024 festival, the Chiang Mai Tourism Council said 50,000 of the city's roughly 60,000 rooms were booked.

For a group, location decides the evenings. A hotel in the old city or on the river puts the lamps, the krathong piers and the parade within walking distance. A resort outside town is quieter, but it means driving in on the festival's busiest nights.

November in Chiang Mai is warm by day and mild after dark. The weather office's averages for 1991 to 2020 give highs of 30.8°C, lows of 19.9°C and 40.9 mm of rain over about four days. The air is usually far clearer than in the February to April burning season, though the station still averages almost eight days of haze in November.

Three nights, night by night

The choice to make early is which night goes to the release, since the trip out takes the whole afternoon and evening. On the 24th the release falls under the full moon; on the 25th it clashes with the parade. We would give the 24th to the lanterns and keep the 25th for the city.

For a group set on floating krathongs in town under the full moon, swap the two nights and take the release on the 25th, accepting that it costs them the parade.

Costumed women on a float in a Loy Krathong parade in Chiang Mai: Farida Tania, Unsplash License. Sky lanterns after a release: sayan Nath, Unsplash License.

Our Northern Thailand Discovery itinerary gives Chiang Mai three nights before the hills and Chiang Rai; set them on 23 to 25 November and the festival sits inside the route. Send us the brief with your dates, group size and the night that matters most, and we can build the hotel, transfers and evenings around it.

Photographs have been resized, some have been cropped, and the page layout may crop them further. Each image and its displayed crop retain the licence linked in its credit.