Koreans see the New Year in twice. At midnight on 31 December crowds gather for a bell or a countdown, and a few hours later many set off to watch the year's first sunrise (haemaji), often with a free bowl of tteokguk, the rice-cake soup eaten on New Year's Day. Most of these events are free, but each lasts a single night, so transport, cold and crowds matter more than tickets. The table gives the 2025–26 times, how to get there and what is known about 2026–27.
The best known is the bell at Bosingak in Jongno, Seoul, struck 33 times at midnight. On 31 December 2025 performances began at about 23:00 (22:50 on the city's event page), 11 citizens and public figures rang the bell, and the band Crying Nut played afterwards; nothing needed booking. Roads around the pavilion were closed to traffic from 18:00 to 07:00 and 47 bus routes were diverted. About 820 city, district and fire staff and about 1,700 police and other agency staff were on duty, with a medical booth and four heated shelters, and Seoul Metro put 160 staff in nine nearby stations. Line 1 trains skipped Jonggak Station from 23:00 to 01:00, while Lines 1–9, Ui-Sinseol and Sillim ran until about 02:00 with 104 extra trains. Nearby, Gwanghwamun Square ran its own screen countdown from 22:50 to 00:30. For New Year 2025 the Bosingak event was cut back to the bell alone after the Jeju Air crash of 29 December 2024: police put the crowd at about 32,000, trains again skipped Jonggak from 23:00 to 01:00, and the subway and buses had been scheduled to run until 02:00.
For the sunrise, the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI) gave these times for 1 January 2026: 07:31 at Ganjeolgot and Bangeojin in Ulsan, the earliest on the mainland, 07:32 in Busan, 07:38 in Jeju, 07:40 in Gangneung and 07:47 in Seoul. The times are for sea level; from 100 m up the sun appears about 2 minutes earlier. The forecast for 1 January is usually reported in mid to late December. The east-coast spots draw tens of thousands of people, so plan to arrive the evening before.
As of 19 October 2026 no organiser had published a 2026–27 programme, except that Seoul says the Seoul Light DDP winter run opens on 17 December 2026 and ends with a countdown on 31 December. All of these events follow the calendar, so expect them on the night of Thursday 31 December 2026 into Friday 1 January 2027, with details in December. Since 1 October 2026 Korail sells train tickets two months before departure, so seats for New Year's Eve go on sale around the end of October.
