The United States Postal Service is celebrating the Lunar New Year with the release of its newest Forever stamp honoring the Year of the Horse, which begins Feb. 17, 2026, and runs through Feb. 5, 2027.
A first-day-of-issue ceremony for the stamp will take place in Houston and will be free and open to the public. Customers can also preorder the Lunar New Year: Year of the Horse stamp now at usps.com, with shipments scheduled to begin Feb. 3, 2026. News and updates surrounding the stamp are being shared on social media using the hashtags #LunarNewYearHorse and #LunarNewYearStamp.
Lunar New Year, also known as Chinese New Year or the Spring Festival, is one of the most widely celebrated cultural holidays in the world. Across the United States, communities observe the occasion with parades, fireworks and festivals, particularly in Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, and other East and Southeast Asian communities.
The Year of the Horse stamp is part of the Postal Service’s current Lunar New Year stamp series, which launched in 2020. This stamp marks the seventh Forever stamp in the series, which will continue through 2031 with designs for the Year of the Ram, Monkey, Rooster, Dog and Boar. Two earlier Lunar New Year stamp series ran from 1992–2004 and 2008–2019 and earned critical acclaim for showcasing artwork by Clarence Lee and Kam Mak.
The new stamp features a colorful three-dimensional mask depicting the frontal view of a horse’s face. USPS art director Antonio Alcalá designed the stamp using original artwork by Camille Chew. The design draws inspiration from the elaborately decorated masks often used in dragon and lion dances performed during Lunar New Year celebrations.
Chew’s artwork represents a contemporary interpretation of traditional paper-cut folk art commonly created during the holiday. The artist constructed the mask from hand-printed paper that was cut, scored and folded into shape, then embellished with acrylic paint and additional paper elements such as flowers and tassels. The back of the mask was reinforced with papier-mâché before being photographed against a white background for use in the stamp series.
The Year of the Horse stamp continues the Postal Service’s tradition of honoring cultural heritage through detailed and symbolic designs that reflect the spirit of Lunar New Year celebrations.
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