Getting Tattooed Around Tet (Lunar New Year) in Vietnam

Tet, Vietnamese Lunar New Year, is the biggest holiday of the year here — and if your trip happens to overlap with it, it genuinely changes what’s realistic to plan, tattoo included.

What actually closes, and for how long

Many small businesses, family-run shops, and services across Hanoi close for Tet, commonly from a few days before the new year through roughly the first week of it — often somewhere in the range of 7 to 10 days total, though this varies studio to studio and year to year since Tet’s exact date shifts with the lunar calendar. If your trip lands anywhere near it, it’s worth checking directly with any studio you’re planning to book with rather than assuming normal hours.

The honest answer on the cultural question

This comes up genuinely often, so it’s worth answering honestly rather than either overstating or dismissing it. There’s a real, documented Vietnamese folk belief about avoiding sharp objects — scissors, knives, and similar tools — around Tet, tied to a symbolic association with “cutting off” luck or harmony for the coming year. What’s less clear is whether that extends specifically to tattoos as an established, widely-held custom. It doesn’t appear to be a formal, universal rule the way avoiding scissors during Tet itself is — it reads more like a reasonable extension some more traditional families or individuals might make, rather than something every Vietnamese person would flag. For some people it could matter; for many others it wouldn’t come up at all.

What this actually means for planning your tattoo

• If your trip overlaps with Tet itself, treat it primarily as a practical scheduling question — confirm a studio is actually open before counting on it — rather than a cultural one you need to navigate carefully.
• If you’re specifically curious about the etiquette side, it’s a completely reasonable thing to ask a studio directly, the same way you’d ask about any other timing question — Vietnamese staff will have a far better read on how it’s actually treated than a generalized answer can give you.
• Outside the immediate Tet period itself, there’s no indication this affects timing at all — it’s specifically about the holiday window, not the weeks around it.

If your trip dates are flexible

Since Tet’s exact date changes every year (it falls sometime between late January and February on the Gregorian calendar), and the days immediately around it bring both closures and a genuinely different atmosphere across the city — heavier local travel, decorated streets, a lot of Hanoi effectively on holiday — it’s worth checking the specific dates for your travel year before finalizing plans, separate from the broader question of the best season to visit for a tattoo.

What to expect at GOAT Tattoo Studio

If your trip falls near Tet, mention it when you first reach out — we’ll confirm our actual hours for those dates directly rather than leaving you to guess, and we’re happy to talk honestly about the cultural question too if it’s on your mind.