Lunar New Year Bingo Card Generator
Print free Lunar New Year bingo cards from 40 entries such as Red outfit, Gong and drums and Ao dai. Each 5x5 card with a free center holds 24 of them, so every card in a set is different; with 30 players the first line usually comes after about 12 calls, roughly 2 minutes at 10 seconds a call.
| B | I | N | G | O |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Sticky rice cake | Ao dai | Family photo | Whole fish | New clothes |
Good wishes | Gong and drums | Red lanterns | Hanbok | Dragon dance |
Kumquat tree | Reunion dinner | FREE | Spring Festival | Plum blossoms |
Tangerines | Oranges | Candy tray | Clean the house | Fireworks show |
Longevity noodles | Door decorations | Zodiac animal | Calligraphy | Firecrackers |
Free: up to 30 different cards per set. Pro: up to 1,000.
Free sets stop at 30 different cards. Your 30 cards are ready to print or download now.
Pro ($19 one-time) opens soon: up to 1,000 different cards per set and 2 or 4 cards on a PDF page. No payment is taken now.
Edit words (40)
Cards update as you type. Long entries shrink to fit their square; a very long single word is split over two lines with a hyphen (up to 40 characters each). The PDF uses a built-in font: emoji and non-Latin scripts print best with Print cards.
Caller sheet
Every call in a shuffled order. Tick each one as you read it out; the same share link always gives the same order.
Updated
About Lunar New Year bingo
Lunar New Year bingo covers celebrations in China, Korea, Vietnam and many other communities: red envelopes, the lion dance and dragon dance, spring couplets on the door, dumplings, longevity noodles, sweet rice balls at the Lantern Festival and rice cake soup eaten for Seollal. It suits classrooms learning about the holiday as well as families celebrating at home.
On a 5x5 card with a free center, Lunar New Year bingo shows 24 of the 40 entries, so each one lands on about 60% of the cards: in a set of 30, Red envelope or Lion dance appears on roughly 18 cards. Card 1 leaves out 16 of them, including Red envelope, Lion dance and Dumplings, so no single card can mark everything.
Play it like classic bingo: one person reads the 40 entries in the shuffled order of the caller sheet, everyone marks matching squares, and a full row, column or diagonal wins.
All 40 Lunar New Year bingo words
Every entry from Ao dai to Zodiac animal, grouped by first letter. Edit them in the generator above: drop Gong and drums if it does not suit your group, or add your own.
- A: Ao dai
- B: Bowing to elders
- C: Calligraphy, Candy tray, Clean the house
- D: Door decorations, Dragon dance, Dumplings
- F: Family photo, Firecrackers, Fireworks show, Fu character
- G: Gong and drums, Good wishes
- H: Hanbok
- K: Kumquat tree
- L: Lantern Festival, Lion dance, Longevity noodles, Lucky red, Lunar calendar
- N: New clothes
- O: Oranges
- P: Paper cutting, Peach blossoms, Plum blossoms
- R: Red envelope, Red lanterns, Red outfit, Reunion dinner, Rice cake soup
- S: Spring couplets, Spring Festival, Spring rolls, Sticky rice cake, Sweet rice balls
- T: Tangerines
- V: Visit elders
- W: Whole fish
- Z: Zodiac animal
Lunar New Year bingo at a glance
| Entries | 40 words and phrases |
|---|---|
| Card | 5x5 card with a free center: 24 of the 40 |
| How it is played | A caller reads the shuffled caller sheet |
| Different cards possible | about 3.90 × 10³⁴ (order matters) |
| Different selections | 62,852,101,650 sets of 24 entries |
| Shortest entry | Ao dai (6 characters) |
| Longest entry | Longevity noodles (17 characters) |
| Multi-word entries | 34 of 40, such as Red envelope and Lion dance |
| Good for | Classrooms, kids, family game nights and ESL lessons |
| Category | New Year (9 themes) |
How long Lunar New Year bingo lasts
Simulated over 150 shuffled games on cards 1-60 of this set: the median first line arrives on call 12 with 30 players and on call 15 with 10, while a blackout takes 37 calls, roughly 6 minutes at 10 seconds a call.
| Players | First line | Line, 80% range | Blackout | Blackout, 80% range |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 players | 15 calls | 12-18 | 38 calls | 35-39 |
| 30 players | 12 calls | 9-15 | 37 calls | 35-38 |
| 60 players | 10 calls | 7-13 | 36 calls | 35-37 |
| 1 card (exact average) | - | - | 39.4 calls | of 40 |
How to host Lunar New Year bingo
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Print the Lunar New Year cards
Give each player one card; a free set prints up to 30, no two alike. Card 1 above starts with Sticky rice cake, Ao dai, Family photo, Whole fish and New clothes.
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Print the caller sheet
All 40 entries appear on it in shuffled order, opening with Sticky rice cake, Longevity noodles, New clothes, Spring Festival and Kumquat tree; tick each one as you read it out.
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Before playing, show pictures of 'Spring couplets', 'Paper cutting' and the 'Fu character' so younger players recognize the decorations when they are called.
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Group the calls by country to teach as you play: 'Rice cake soup' and 'Bowing to elders' come from Korean Seollal, while 'Ao dai' is worn in Vietnam for Tet.
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Print the cards on red paper and hand out paper envelopes as markers; 'Red envelope' and 'Lucky red' then feel part of the game itself.
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Call until someone shouts bingo
With 30 cards, expect the first line near call 12 (Candy tray in this set's order) and a blackout near call 37; check the winner's squares against your ticked list.
Lunar New Year bingo variations
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Lunar New Year variation
Lantern Festival round: on the fifteenth day of the new year, replay with only the food and light squares, and ask winners to explain one tradition, such as 'Sweet rice balls', before claiming the line.
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Blackout round
Card 1 needs all 24 squares, Sticky rice cake to Firecrackers; on average one card fills after 39.4 of the 40 calls (98% of the deck).
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Quick 4x4 round
A 4x4 card needs 16 of the 40 entries and no free space; one card is full after about 38.6 calls instead of 39.4.
First 15 calls of this Lunar New Year set
Seed "lunar-new-year" gives this order, the same one the caller sheet prints. With these calls, card 19 of the first 30 completes the diagonal from the top left (Spring Festival, Family photo, New clothes and Longevity noodles) on call 9, and card 2 is the first full card on call 39.
| Call | Entry | Cards marked (of 30) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sticky rice cake | 16 of 30 |
| 2 | Longevity noodles | 19 of 30 |
| 3 | New clothes | 18 of 30 |
| 4 | Spring Festival | 23 of 30 |
| 5 | Kumquat tree | 13 of 30 |
| 6 | Rice cake soup | 15 of 30 |
| 7 | Lion dance | 19 of 30 |
| 8 | Good wishes | 17 of 30 |
| 9 | Family photo | 22 of 30 |
| 10 | Visit elders | 16 of 30 |
| 11 | Zodiac animal | 18 of 30 |
| 12 | Candy tray | 15 of 30 |
| 13 | Fireworks show | 20 of 30 |
| 14 | Lucky red | 16 of 30 |
| 15 | Calligraphy | 21 of 30 |
Themes like Lunar New Year bingo
Ranked by category, occasion and audience; none of them repeats an entry from this list, so pasting two into the Edit words box gives a longer game.
Closest word lists
Frequently asked questions
How many words are on the Lunar New Year bingo list?
40, from Ao dai to Zodiac animal. A 5x5 card with a free center uses 24 of them, so each card leaves out 16. The shortest entry is Ao dai (6 characters) and the longest is Longevity noodles (17).
Are all Lunar New Year bingo cards the same?
No. Card 1 and card 2 of this set share 15 of their 24 squares, and every card is checked so none of the 30 in a free set repeats. About 3.90 × 10³⁴ different arrangements are possible from the 40 entries (62,852,101,650 different selections of 24).
How many Lunar New Year bingo cards per person?
Usually one. Extra cards speed the game up only a little: on this list a first line took a median 12 calls with 30 cards in play, 10 with 60 (30 players on two cards each) and 15 with just 10. Two cards suit adults who want a faster game; young children do best with one. A free set of 30 covers 15 players on two cards each.
How long does Lunar New Year bingo take?
A Lunar New Year game with 30 players usually reaches its first line after 12 calls (9-15 in 80% of simulated games), about 2 minutes at one call every 10 seconds. A blackout takes about 37; with 10 players the first line needs about 15.
Can I print Lunar New Year bingo cards for free?
Yes. All 40 entries are loaded above, so choose a card count up to 30 and press Print cards, or Download PDF to print later at one card per sheet (30 sheets for a full set). The shuffled caller sheet prints separately; nothing is uploaded or stored on a server.
How do I make my own Lunar New Year bingo cards?
Start from this list: the 40 entries are already in the generator, so delete Ao dai or any other entry, type your own one per line and the cards update as you type. Keep at least 24 entries for 5x5 cards (16 for 4x4); the share link reprints exactly the same set.
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