The seventh lunar month runs from 13 August to 10 September in 2026. It affects when some Vietnamese tenants want to move in. It does not stop an apartment being advertised, viewed, or signed.
The full moon that carries the heaviest of the rites falls on 27 August. Move-in and letting get bundled together as one decision, and an apartment then sits empty for a month for no reason.
What the custom actually covers
The seventh lunar month is known in Vietnam as tháng cô hồn, the month of wandering souls, and the rites around the full moon on 27 August are the busiest part of it. Custom discourages large purchases and, more specifically for a landlord, the ceremony of entering a new home.
A lease signature is not that ceremony. Neither is a viewing, a deposit transfer, or a set of photographs. What some tenants will ask to move is the day they physically arrive.
The two dates in your lease are not the same date
The date a lease term starts and the date a tenant moves in are separate lines, and they do not have to match. A tenant who wants to arrive on 12 September can still sign in August, pay the deposit in August, and start the term in August.
That is a negotiation about a few weeks of rent, not a reason to hold the apartment off the market. Where the deposit and the term sit in the drafting is set out in what deposit is standard in a Hanoi lease.
The demand does not disappear, it shifts forward
Interest in Vietnamese property rose ahead of the ghost month in 2025 rather than fell. The month opened on 23 August that year, and Batdongsan.com.vn data for July, reported by Vietnam News on 22 August 2025, put the rise at 13 per cent for sale listings and 15 per cent for rental listings against June, as buyers and tenants moved to settle things early.
The same report describes rental prices over that period as relatively stable. Read those two together and the effect is a shift in timing, not a loss of demand. Demand that pulls forward into one month has to land somewhere, and it lands on the other side.
The real risk in a handover year is congestion, not custom
This is where the calendar matters for a specific group of owners. Lumi Hanoi is working to a September 2026 handover for the first Signature towers, which puts the start of that window inside the seventh lunar month and the rest of it immediately after.
Several hundred apartments in one phase hand over across the same few weeks. If a large share of those owners hold everything until the month closes on 10 September, they arrive on the market together, competing on the same layouts in the same tower.
An apartment that is furnished, photographed and listed before that wave gets seen first. The sequence between collecting keys and a tenant signing starts at the acceptance inspection: what to check before you sign.
What can be done this month without anyone moving in
Every step that decides how quickly an apartment lets happens before a tenant arrives:
| Step | Needs a tenant present? |
|---|---|
| Pre-handover inspection and snag list | No |
| Fit-out and furnishing | No |
| Professional photography and listing copy | No |
| Viewings | No |
| Screening, lease drafting, deposit | No |
| Move-in | Yes |
Only the last line is touched by any of this. Furnishing takes weeks rather than days, which is the argument against waiting: an owner who starts in mid-September is choosing a start date, not avoiding one. Package prices for that work start at $4,000 for a one-bedroom, listed on interior and furnishing.
If a tenant asks to delay the move
Three things keep a delay from turning into a vacancy. Agree the lease term start separately from the move-in date. Take the deposit on signature rather than on arrival. Put the key handover date in writing so it does not drift.
We market to the expat channel as well as the domestic one, and the lease is handled in English and Vietnamese, which is what makes a split date straightforward to document rather than a source of argument later. The fee for that work is one month’s rent, payable only when a tenant signs.
For an apartment already let, none of this arises. The month affects arrivals, not tenancies, and the routine of rent collection, bills and repairs continues through it under property management at 4% of annual rent.
The dates change every year
The seventh lunar month is fixed to the lunar calendar, so it lands on different Gregorian dates each year. In 2026 that is 13 August to 10 September. Planning a letting calendar around it means checking where the window sits that year rather than assuming August.
Common questions
When is the ghost month in Vietnam this year?
The seventh lunar month runs from 13 August to 10 September 2026, and the full moon that carries the Vu Lan and wandering-souls rites falls on 27 August. The dates move every year because they follow the lunar calendar, so a date that sits inside the month one year sits outside it the next.
Should I wait until after the ghost month to advertise my Hanoi apartment?
No. Advertising, viewings, photography and lease drafting are not what the custom touches. What some Vietnamese tenants avoid is the move-in itself, and a move-in date is a separate line in the lease from the date the term starts.
My apartment hands over during the ghost month. Does anything change?
Handover is a transaction with the developer, not a house move, so the inspection and the snag list run as scheduled. The part worth planning is what follows: in a tower where several hundred units hand over in the same weeks, apartments that are furnished and photographed early get seen first.
