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Festival

Loy Krathongลอยกระทง

One night in November when the whole country floats a candlelit offering down the nearest water

Next
In 8 weeks
24 November 2026
Where
Nationwide, Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Sukhothai, Ayutthaya, Tak
Public holiday
No
Alcohol sales
Normal

In short

Loy Krathong falls on the full moon of the twelfth Thai lunar month, when the rivers are at their highest after the monsoon. People float a small decorated raft — a krathong — carrying a candle, three incense sticks and a coin, as an apology to the water and a way of letting go of the past year. It is celebrated everywhere there is water, which in Thailand means everywhere.

A Loi Krathong ceremony at a Chiang Mai temple after dark: rows of monks in orange robes seated among hundreds of small candle flames, beneath tiers of glowing yellow, red and blue paper lanterns strung through the trees, with one monk standing in the foreground.
DEBA PRASAD ROY / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

Go if

  • Sukhothai, where the festival is staged inside the ruins of the old capital and looks like nothing else
  • Anyone who wants a genuinely participatory ritual that takes ten minutes and costs under ฿100
  • Chiang Mai, if you want Loy Krathong and Yi Peng in the same night
  • Riverside Bangkok — Asiatique, ICONSIAM and the Phra Athit stretch above Khao San

Be aware

  • Bread and polystyrene krathongs are widely sold; the polystyrene ones are an environmental problem and increasingly banned
  • Riverbanks and piers get dangerously crowded, and drownings happen every year
  • Chao Phraya cross-river ferries and dinner cruises are heavily booked and run late
  • It is not a public holiday, so the crush arrives after work and peaks between 19:00 and 21:00

Loy Krathong is the most quietly appealing thing in the Thai calendar. There is no ticket, no schedule and no obligation beyond buying a small raft from a street vendor, lighting the candle, and setting it into the water. The whole thing takes ten minutes, and the effect of ten thousand other people doing the same thing along a kilometre of riverbank is the part that stays with you.

Where to be, ranked honestly#

  • Sukhothai Historical Park is the best version and the one worth planning a trip around. The festival is staged among the thirteenth-century ruins with a light-and-sound programme over several nights. It is ticketed for the main arena, the town has limited accommodation, and rooms go three to four months ahead.
  • Chiang Mai combines Loy Krathong on the Ping River with the Yi Peng lantern tradition, plus a parade along Tha Phae Road. Busiest and most expensive; see our Yi Peng page for the lantern side.
  • Bangkok is diffuse rather than concentrated. ICONSIAM and Asiatique run organised riverside events with vendors and staff to help you reach the water; Santichaiprakarn Park at the Phra Athit end of Khao San is the closest thing to a neighbourhood version in the old city.
  • Tak, on the Ping, floats linked strings of coconut-shell krathongs rather than single rafts — a genuinely distinct regional variant, and almost no foreign visitors.
  • Your nearest khlong. In most of Thailand, the local canal, temple pond or hotel pool is where people actually go. It is a better experience than a crowded pier.

What it costs#

Typical Loy Krathong outlay, 2026
ItemCostNote
Banana-trunk krathong from a street vendor฿40–150Larger and more ornate at the top of the range
Bread krathong฿50–100Sold as fish food; still adds nutrients to already-poor water
Sukhothai main arena ticket฿100–800Grandstand seating for the light-and-sound show
Bangkok river dinner cruise฿1,800–4,500Roughly double the normal fare on the night
Sukhothai guesthouse, festival rate฿1,500–4,000Two- or three-night minimums are common

Street-vendor prices are consistent across the country; the premiums are all in transport, seating and accommodation.

The etiquette, briefly#

Light the candle and the three incense sticks, hold the krathong at chest height for a moment, and place it on the water rather than throwing it. A coin and a strand of hair or a fingernail clipping are traditional additions — the idea is that something of you goes with it. Couples float one together; if the two rafts drift apart, people will tell you what that is supposed to mean.

Buy the banana-trunk version. Bangkok collected well over half a million krathongs from its waterways in a single night in recent years, and the natural-material share has risen sharply because the city sorts and reports on it. Polystyrene is now refused by many vendors and banned outright in several provinces.

Common questions

Is Loy Krathong a public holiday?

No. Banks, offices and schools operate normally. It is an evening festival, which is exactly why the crowds are so compressed.

Is it the same as the lantern festival in the photos?

No. The floating sky lanterns are Yi Peng, a Lanna tradition centred on Chiang Mai and the north. The two coincide, which is why the images get mixed together, but Loy Krathong itself is about water.

Why do the dates jump around so much?

It follows the Thai lunar calendar, which periodically inserts a leap month. 2026 is one of those years, which is why Loy Krathong lands on 24 November rather than the more usual early-to-mid November slot.

Dates

The full moon of the twelfth month in the Thai lunar calendar — always a November evening, occasionally very late in the month. It is a single night, not a multi-day festival, though Sukhothai and Chiang Mai run programmes of several days around it. It is not a public holiday: banks and offices stay open.

  • 24 November 2026Tuesday. The same night as Yi Peng in Chiang Mai and the November full moon party on Koh Phangan.
  • 13 November 2027Saturday, per the Thai lunar calendar. Some international listings give 14 November; treat the date as firm only once TAT publishes its programme.

Sources

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