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Festivals · Nagaland

Hornbill Festival 2026: Dates, Permit, Getting There and What It Costs

Every December, all of Nagaland's tribes gather at a heritage village outside Kohima for ten days of dance, music, food and games. It is one of the best festivals in India, and one of the easiest to get wrong: you need a permit, the rooms go early, and the road has had a bad monsoon. Here is the 2026 plan, every rupee shown.

Photo: JyotiPN, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Text added by Trip Under.

Hornbill is named after the bird that appears in the folklore of most Naga tribes. Each tribe has a morung, a traditional house, at Kisama, and the days are a rotation of dances, songs, wrestling, archery and a great deal of food, with music every evening. It falls on Statehood Day, 1 December, and Kohima fills up around it.

The 2026 dates come from news reports quoting officials (Sentinel Assam, 15 October 2026, and Time Out); the festival's own site was not yet showing the main dates when we checked. Permit rules are from the official Nagaland ILP portal. Prices are 2025's where 2026's are not published, and we say so.

Dates, venue and entry

Photo: Aravind Manickam, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Inner Line Permit

• Who needs it: every visitor from outside Nagaland, Indian citizens included.
• Apply online at ilp.nagaland.gov.in: ₹200 for a domestic tourist permit, valid 30 days, plus payment gateway charges.
• Documents: a recent passport photo and one ID (Aadhaar, PAN, Voter ID, bank passbook or ration card), uploaded as JPG or PNG under 300 KB. No guarantor needed.
• Or get it on arrival: counters near Dimapur railway station (at the Senior Tourist Officer's office, walking distance from the station and bus stand) and in the Dimapur airport arrivals area issue tourist permits offline. Helpline +91-6909636762.
• Foreign visitors: ₹500 for 30 days, and registration with the Foreigners Registration Office within 24 hours of arrival.

Getting there

Dimapur is the only railhead and airport. From there it is road to Kohima, then the festival shuttle out to Kisama.

• Dimapur to Kohima: about 74 km, 2–3 hours. A whole taxi from the stand next to Dimapur station was about ₹1,500–2,000 on the state tourism site (an older page); shared taxis run too, at about ₹250–330 a seat in reports we could find.
• Kohima to Kisama: in 2025 the Nagaland State Transport shuttle ran 8 am to 10 pm during the festival, ₹50 from PHQ Junction and ₹80 from the ISBT. Cars without a police pass park at Kigwema, with a free shuttle to the gate.

Where to stay

• Viswema homestays, south of Kisama on the Dzükou side: dorm beds at about ₹300 and private rooms about ₹500 (Morung Express, December 2025). The best-known backpacker place was full for the festival weeks ahead.
• Kigwema, right next to Kisama: the state tourism directory lists 14 homestays here (contacts only, no prices).
• Kohima hotels raise prices for the festival: one example went from ₹2,500–5,000 to ₹3,000–6,000 a night.

Book as soon as your dates are fixed. Outlook's advice on Kohima in December still holds: it can be impossibly busy and expensive.

What a shoestring trip costs

That ₹4,380 covers only what we could put a source to. Add your other meals, any taxi between Viswema and Kisama, and tips. Coming from Delhi or the south, the train is the big extra: a sleeper from Chennai or Bengaluru is about ₹1,050–1,120 each way, and 3AC about ₹2,600–2,750.

Food at the festival is part of the point. In 2025 the Ao morung's thali was cut to ₹350 on the tourism department's direction, with a ₹500 buffet; the government also set price ceilings at the stalls.

Weather and what to pack

Kohima in December averages about 17°C by day and 5°C at night (IMD normals, 1991–2020), with almost no rain. Bring warm layers for the evenings at the arena, comfortable shoes for the slopes of the heritage village, cash for the stalls, and your permit on your phone and on paper.

Add a day or two around it

• Kohima War Cemetery, in town: free entry (8 am–3 pm in winter, per Outlook).
• Khonoma, an Angami village near Kohima with homestays in the state tourism directory, if you want a quieter night or two.
• Dzükou Valley: the trek starts about 25 km from Kohima, from Viswema or Jakhama. In December the valley is brown and frosty rather than green, and nights are cold; see our Dzükou trek page for the grade and gear.

Frequently asked questions

Sources and how we priced this

• Dates and venue: Sentinel Assam (15 Oct 2026); Time Out India (16 Sep 2026); Morung Express, preparatory meeting and NH-29 (13 Oct 2026); hornbillfestival.com (accessed 25 Oct 2026); All India Radio, 26th edition (1 Dec 2025).
• Entry and food: Daily Pioneer, Director of Tourism (1 Dec 2025); Morung Express, costlier tickets (6 Dec 2025); Eastern Mirror, Ao morung prices (10 Dec 2025); Outlook Traveller, line-up (29 Nov 2025).
• Permit: ilp.nagaland.gov.in fees and checklist (accessed 25 Oct 2026); Nagaland IPR, Dimapur ILP counters (30 Nov 2025); Morung Express, foreign visitors (29 May 2025).
• Transport: Nagaland IPR, festival shuttle (29 Nov 2025); Eastern Mirror (10 Dec 2024); tourism.nagaland.gov.in, how to get there (2020); ConfirmTkt train listings (Oct 2026); Morung Express, Dimapur–Kohima (2023).
• Stays: Morung Express, Viswema homestays (9 Dec 2025); tourism.nagaland.gov.in homestay directory. Weather: IMD climatological normals 1991–2020 for Kohima.

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Costs come from Trip Under's place data and our cost model (see methodology). They are indicative ballparks for budget travel and move with season and demand. Check live bus, train and room prices before you book. Trip Under is reader-planned, not an agency, and takes no commission on any booking.