New Year on Mallorca 2026/2027

31 December is two days in one

On 31 December 1229 Jaume I entered Palma. Every year the morning of the Festa de l'Estendard, the island's oldest civic festival, recalls that day: at about 10:15 the royal banner is raised in front of the town hall, followed by a mass in the cathedral and a horseback procession through the old town. On this day the Consell de Mallorca observes the Diada de Mallorca, the island's official day. Travel sites leave this part out; if you live here, it is worth knowing.

In the evening the same square becomes the place of the midnight bells: the town hall clock on Plaça de Cort rings in the new year, and below it thousands of people stand with twelve grapes in hand. Doing both in one day is no problem, there are twelve hours in between.

What is open on 31 December and 1 January

31 December is not in any public holiday calendar. It is an ordinary working day with shortened hours, not a holiday. If you need a government office, a gestoría or a bank that day, you can still get an appointment in the morning. 1 January is a public holiday, confirmed in the Balearic holiday calendar for 2027 (BOIB). All holidays of the year are listed in our article on public holidays on Mallorca.

Pharmacy: On 1 January the duty rota applies. Which pharmacy is on duty is posted on the door of every pharmacy and in the rota lists of the pharmacists' association. How the system works is explained in our article on pharmacies on Mallorca.

Emergency number: 112, in any language, around the clock. Hospital emergency departments work normally on both days. More in our article on emergencies on Mallorca.

Fuel: Self-service pumps keep running on 1 January, staffed petrol stations not necessarily. Filling up on the evening of 31 December saves the search.

Sunday, 3 January 2027, is one of the ten Sunday trading days of the year in the Balearic Islands. What an individual chain does with it is up to the chain.

The midnight bells at Plaça de Cort

The central spot is Plaça de Cort, because that is where the town hall clock hangs, known locally as En Figuera. The clock is the whole point: one grape is eaten at each of its twelve chimes. The square is small and full from about 23:00. That is why the city sets up a second site on Plaça de la Reina, with a big screen showing the clock and its own stage. There is more room there, also with children.

After the chimes, live music or a DJ plays on both squares. Who performs changes every year and is therefore not listed here. What stays the same is the sequence:

How 31 December unfolds in Palma

1. about 10:15Raising of the royal banner in front of the town hall, Plaça de Cort
2. about 10:30Mass in La Seu Cathedral
3. about 12:00Horseback procession of the Cavallers de Sant Jordi through the old town
4. about 23:30Plaça de Cort is full, overflow at Plaça de la Reina
5. 00:00Twelve chimes, twelve grapes
6. about 01:40Music ends at Plaça de Cort
7. about 02:30Music ends at Plaça de la Reina

Times marked "about" follow the pattern of previous years. The city publishes the programme for this turn of the year on palma.cat.

The twelve grapes

Twelve grapes, one per chime, one per month of the new year. Finish them all and you have luck; fail and you have an audience. The ritual comes from the mainland but is as natural on the island as a glass of sparkling wine at midnight is elsewhere.

The practical part most guides leave out: twelve grapes with seeds in twelve seconds does not work. The usual way is peeled, seedless grapes from a tin, twelve per tin, next to the till in every supermarket from mid-December. For small children whole grapes are a choking risk; families give them grape juice or twelve jelly sweets instead.

A tin cost between 1.5 and 3 EUR in the 2025/2026 season (as of December 2025). On the afternoon of 31 December the shelves are often empty, so buy earlier.

How you get home

The most useful section of this page. On New Year's Eve, transport is the real problem on Mallorca: the number of taxi licences is limited, demand is concentrated in a single hour, and anyone looking for a taxi at Plaça de Cort at half past midnight will be looking for a long time. The one sentence that matters: if you are not celebrating within walking distance, sort out your ride home before 30 December. After that, everything is booked.

Taxi

Getting a taxi on the spot at midnight rarely works in Palma and almost never outside it. What does work: booking a ride at a fixed time with your municipality's taxi dispatch a few days ahead. The phone numbers for every municipality are on our page taxi numbers on Mallorca. Between 21:00 on 31 December and 21:00 on 1 January the night tariff plus a holiday surcharge applies; how the tariff is built up is explained in our article on taxis and VTC on Mallorca.

VTC and pre-booked transfers

VTC are licensed cars with a driver, far thinner on the ground on Mallorca than on the mainland. On New Year's Eve they are not a fallback for the moment but an option for people who book ahead. For a transfer at a fixed time, say from the party home or to the airport on 1 or 2 January, you can pre-book a transfer via Booking.com with the price fixed in advance. That too only works with notice.

Bus

In Palma the EMT runs a special New Year's Eve timetable with extra night services on the main lines, and the TIB runs a holiday timetable island-wide. Both are published only a few days beforehand, so no fixed times here. How lines, tickets and night buses work in general is in our article on public transport on Mallorca.

Driving yourself

Spain's drink-driving limits are lower than in many countries: 0.5 g/l of blood (0.25 mg/l of breath) in general, and 0.3 g/l (0.15 mg/l) for drivers in their first two years and professional drivers. The source is the DGT, the Spanish traffic authority, which is also the first to announce any change. Checks on New Year's Eve are routine, regularly on the approaches to Palma and on the Ma-19 and Ma-13. Two glasses of cava are enough to put you over.

If you celebrate in another municipality, you have three ways home: a pre-booked taxi, a pre-booked transfer or a bed where you are. The fourth, a spontaneous taxi at one in the morning, is not one.

San Silvestre: running in the morning

On the morning of 31 December, Palma (Castell de Bellver), Calvià, Inca and Alcúdia run out the old year, some in fancy dress, with children's races first. Several runs use online registration and were sold out before the start in previous years; the registration deadline matters more than the start time. Announcements usually appear from November.

Eating out or celebrating at home

Every Spanish New Year's Eve announcement carries the word cotillón. It means the package: set menu, drinks, music, grapes at midnight, plus party hats and confetti, often with a minimum spend and almost always paid in advance. If you do not know the word, the prices make no sense.

The sought-after places are gone by early December. Anyone searching on 28 December is searching the leftovers. We deliberately name no restaurants: a recommendation we cannot check costs more on New Year's Eve than none at all. Book early, ask what the price includes, and whether the way home is within walking distance.

New Year's Eve menus with cotillón ranged roughly from 60 to 150 EUR per person in the 2025/2026 season (as of December 2025), with no upper limit. Without a date that would be a claim; with one it is an order of magnitude.

Celebrating at home is the rule on the island, not the exception. Shopping is done beforehand: tinned grapes, cava, turrón and polvorones, plus lentils for 1 January (see customs). 31 December is a working day, so supermarkets are open, but crowded in the afternoon and closing earlier. Shop in the morning and you are done by the afternoon.

Fireworks, firecrackers and pets

Whether and where you may set off fireworks privately is decided on Mallorca not by the island but by your municipality through its ordinance, and near woodland also by fire-safety rules. The rules differ considerably between Palma, Calvià and the villages, and breaches are enforced on this night. The only reliable answer comes from the town hall; for Palma it is on palma.cat. What we do not do: list what is supposedly allowed. A wrong statement about pyrotechnics is a safety issue. If you expect a midnight sky full of rockets as in some countries, you will be surprised anyway: on the island it bangs here and there, not everywhere.

Getting dogs and cats through the night

New Year's Eve is the hardest night of the year for animals, and on Mallorca many dogs live in a garden or on a finca without neighbours who could step in. Most animals that run away on New Year's Eve run away from their own garden. Five things, all in the afternoon and not at eleven:

• A long walk early in the afternoon, then the animal stays indoors. No time outside after dark.
• Windows, shutters and doors closed, radio or TV on, a retreat with a familiar blanket.
• Check the microchip and registration before anything happens. Both are compulsory in the Balearic Islands and the only way to get a lost animal back.
• Sedatives come from the vet, not from the internet, and in good time: on 31 December no practice has an appointment left.
• Keep cats that normally go out indoors from the afternoon of the 31st and close the cat flap.

The basics on vets, chips and insurance are in our article on pets on Mallorca. Pet sitters and vets with direct contact are in the directory:

1 January

Any Nou, New Year's Day, is a very quiet day on the island, and that is the practical answer to what to do on 1 January: a late breakfast, a walk, the sea. Shops and offices are closed, many restaurants keep the kitchen shut. What the rest of the month looks like is in our post Mallorca in January.

Several beaches see a New Year's swim, in Palma usually at Platja de Can Pere Antoni, elsewhere wherever a group gathers. A fixed time and an organiser are rare, and the water is around 15 degrees.

New Year concerts take place in Palma and several municipalities, with programmes published in December. Five days later, on 5 January, the Cabalgata de Reyes brings the real highlight of the season for families. Everything about it is on our page Christmas in Mallorca.

Customs and superstitions

The twelve grapes are the custom everyone knows. If you are not finished by the last chime, nothing happens except that everyone laughs. New Year's Eve here works differently from what you may be used to: no countdown fireworks from every balcony, no particular television ritual.

Red underwear on New Year's Eve brings luck in love, but only if it was a gift and not bought yourself. From mid-December it hangs in a prominent spot in every lingerie shop.

A gold ring or a coin in the glass of cava at midnight is said to bring prosperity, and so is a spoonful of lentils on 1 January. Both are common in many families on the island.

What is not Mallorcan: the advice to walk around the block with a suitcase so the year brings travel. That custom is Latin American and is regularly transplanted here by guidebooks. If you do it you are doing nothing wrong, just do not expect the neighbours to join in. More on the winter traditions in our post Christmas on Mallorca: Traditions and Customs.

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