🇹🇼How does Taiwan mark Mid-Autumn and Moon Viewing?

中秋節

Local date

September 25, 2026

When is it?

The 15th day of the eighth month in the lunar calendar; the Gregorian date differs each year

In Taiwan Mid-Autumn is a paid public holiday under the Act on Commemorative Days and Holidays, falling on the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month, so the Gregorian date moves each year. Alongside Lunar New Year and Duanwu it is one of the three major festivals, and the point is that the family is together: moon viewing, mooncakes and pomelo, and only then each household's own habits. Because it is a rare long weekend, travelling home and meeting friends often take more of the day than the ritual does. Taiwan's Mid-Autumn carries one fixed feature found nowhere else: barbecue. It is not an old custom but a habit grown over recent decades, and it is now the most widespread activity of the day — on arcades, in parks, along the riverbanks, everyone is grilling, and the smell in the air identifies the date more reliably than the moon does. Pomelo and mooncakes remain; the barbecue simply turned moon-viewing from looking up into spending a whole evening outdoors.