New Year's Eve in Valencia: the square, two fireworks shows and chimes at noon
- Published
- 27 October 2026
- Reading
- 5 min read
- Where
- Valencia, Spain
- Prices checked
- 27. Oct 2026.
Valencia's New Year's Eve had two fireworks shows in 2025, a free square with a gate and a children's countdown at noon. Here is how to get in, where the longer show was and how to get home.
Fallas gets the fame, which is why many visitors assume NYE in Valencia is a quiet affair. The 2025 edition said otherwise: chimes from a town hall clock, a DJ line-up that ran into the small hours and two separate fireworks displays in different parts of the city. Anyone planning New Year in Valencia has one real decision to make, and it is the square or the fireworks. The square is free and has the clock. The longer show was somewhere else.
Plaza del Ayuntamiento at midnight
Nochevieja, as Spaniards call the night, is celebrated on Plaza del Ayuntamiento, the square in front of the town hall. The clock tower gives the evening its centre. The campanadas, the chimes that count down the last seconds of the year, rang from that clock with music and lights around them, and a short fireworks display fired from the town hall terrace right after them. Entry was free and needed no ticket. Programme: 2025: party 10.30pm to 1.45am, countdown at 11.59pm. The terrace fireworks, made by the firm Pirotecnia Vulcano, were brief: 2025: about 90 seconds, right after the chimes.
The music in 2025 came from three DJs. Boccachico opened from the town hall balcony, Pepino Marino from Madrid played after midnight and Ele DJ closed with pop and house. Those names belong to 2025. The city published the 2025 programme on 30 December, so expect the 2026 version close to the night itself rather than months ahead.
Free, but with a gate
Free does not mean walk in whenever you like. In 2025 the square was shut to the public before the evening got going, and everyone filed in through five controlled entrances: 2025: square closed to the public at 8.30pm, entry from 10pm through five entrances. At those entrances the city handed out 10,000 reusable cups so that no glass would enter the square. Police, firefighters, civil protection and a medical team were on site, and the city asked people to come by public transport.
- Marqués de Sotelo
- Passeig de Russafa
- Correos
- Barcas
- María Cristina
City of Arts and Sciences
The Valencia fireworks at the Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències have their own name, Resplandor, and the same pyrotechnics firm as the square. The show started at the Puente de Monteolivete in time with the chimes, synchronised by GPS. Length: 2025: about nine minutes. The complex around it holds the Hemisfèric, the Museu de les Ciències, L'Umbracle and the Oceanogràfic, so the same trip can combine a daytime visit with the evening. If your dates allow, buy tickets for the Oceanogràfic, the Science Museum or the Hemisfèric for 30 December or for the days after 2 January, so that 1 January stays free.
A ticket with a chosen time slot, booked ahead.
Getting there and back
The closest metro station to the square is Xàtiva, next to the Estación del Norte. Rail on the night: 2025/26: metro and tram run without a break from before midnight to the morning of 1 Jan. That matters because the walk to the square is short and the ride home is the part people forget. Suburban buses are a different story, since the Metrobús network stopped early: 2025/26: suburban buses stop around 9pm, then night lines run. A single trip inside one zone costs €1.50, and the airport to the city by metro costs €4.80. With a big crowd leaving the square at the same moment, walking away from the entrances for a few blocks before boarding is easier than fighting for a platform next to them.
If the square feels like too much: dinners and parties
The 2025 listings on Visit València offered several ways to see midnight without standing in a crowd. Atenea Sky served dinner with a view of the square and the chimes from its balcony, with music until five in the morning: €190. The Grand Hotel Centenari offered an aperitif and dinner with piano until midnight, then a rooftop with an open bar and a DJ above the square: €250. Casino Cirsa sold three packages, from a restaurant evening to a party hall that went on until four. By the sea, the Hotel Balneario Las Arenas and La Marítima en Veles e Vents held their own galas. Four clubs, Mya, Akuarela Playa, Convento and Committee, included one drink with the entrance. In Spanish the party package is called a cotillón, which is the word to look for when booking.
Families get a separate countdown at midday, the campanadas infantiles. The 2025 programme had the singer Gisela, a circus, face painting and balloons, with confetti at noon. Programme: 2025: programme 10.30am–1pm, clock chimes at noon. At the real midnight many Spaniards eat grapes, one with each chime, and the same habit works in a restaurant as well as in a square.
New Year's Day
The first of January is a public holiday in the Valencian Community. The City of Arts and Sciences listed festive hours: 2025/26: extended hours and programme until 6 Jan, market at L'Umbracle until 6 Jan (Science Museum and Hemisfèric closed 25 Dec). The Christmas lights at L'Umbracle switched on every day from 6 pm. A slow day on foot suits the morning after, and the sensible places to put fixed plans are 30 December and the days after 2 January. A tapas tour or a paella cooking class fits those dates, and an Albufera sunset boat is a good use of an afternoon later in the trip.
An organised visit with a guide.
Check the same room on both sites: price and cancellation terms can differ.
Spain, in brief
What now
If this sounds like your trip, start here.
Valencia
→The city that moved its river out of its bed and built a park in it
Valencia in 3 days
→Three days arranged by opening hours: the market and the old town in the morning, the aquarium at opening, the lagoon before sunset.
Day trips from Valencia
→Sagunto on the C6, Xàtiva on the C-2, Llíria by metro and the Albufera by city bus: all without a car.
Where to stay in Valencia
→The old town for a first visit, Ruzafa for going out, Cabanyal for the sea and the City of Arts and Sciences for an early start there.
Valencia off the main axis: gates you can climb and the frescoes of San Nicolás
→A gate still marked by French cannon fire, a church painted to the last inch of its vault and a station that wishes travellers a good journey in several languages.
What to eat in Valencia
→The esmorzaret at ten, paella at noon, horchata in the afternoon — in Valencia every meal keeps its own hour.
The best time to visit Valencia
→May, June and early September for sightseeing and the sea, August for the heat, March for Fallas, and autumn for the heaviest rain.
Getting around Valencia
→Metro from the airport in about twenty minutes, the old town on foot, the beach by tram and the Albufera lagoon by city bus 25.
Spain
→A country where dinner is at ten and the city wakes up as everywhere else turns the lights off
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→A plan for New Year's Eve in Istanbul: where the countdown happens on the Bosphorus, what the Taksim crowd is like, how to get home afterwards and what is open on 1 January.
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New Year's Eve in Málaga: twelve grapes at Plaza de la Constitución and what comes after
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→Porto's main New Year's Eve party was held on Avenida dos Aliados in the edition of 31 December 2025, with a multimedia show and fireworks at midnight.
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New Year's Eve in Graz: a water-and-light show, not fireworks
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→Nuremberg runs no public countdown and no official fireworks.
New Year's Eve in Sibiu: Piața Mare and the market
→The main New Year's Eve party in Sibiu is an open-air concert on Piața Mare, with the Christmas market still standing around it.
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