Nagaland's Hornbill Festival Gathers the Tribes' Morungs at Kisama from 1 to 10 December, Drew 2,14,493 Visitors in 2025 and Runs on a Rs 200 Inner Line Permit for Indian Visitors

The Hornbill Festival runs from 1 to 10 December every year at the Naga Heritage Village in Kisama, a few kilometres outside Kohima, and the 2026 edition is the 27th. Tourism Nagaland, the state’s tourism site, lists the 2026 dates as 1 to 10 December and says the festival was conceptualised in 2000. The 2025 edition counted 2,14,493 visitors over its ten days, the Morung Express reported on 10 December 2025, the highest total in six years.

Every date, fee and rule below carries the date of its source, or 28 October 2026 where we read an official page that day.

What the festival is

The Directorate of Tourism describes the Hornbill Festival as a ten-day annual event run by the Government of Nagaland to show the state’s cultural heritage. Its page lists cultural performances by Naga tribes, handloom and handicraft sales, indigenous games including Naga wrestling, a food festival, village walks and treks, a World War II rally, King Chilli and pineapple eating contests, the Hornbill Music Festival with rock contests, and bamboo and night carnivals. It calls the event the “Festival of Festivals”.

Opening day, 1 December, is Nagaland’s Statehood Day, the Nagaland Post and the Tribune both note. The Nagaland Post reported on 26 October 2026 that the Tourism and Higher Education Minister said the President had agreed to attend the opening day as chief guest. The Morung Express, writing on 22 October, put it more carefully, saying the President was likely to attend.

The festival takes its name from the great hornbill, a large forest bird. Outlook India’s 2022 feature says the Naga communities link it with bravery and strength and that warriors wore its feathers in ceremonial headdresses.

Kisama and its tribal houses

Kisama is a name made from two villages. Tourism Nagaland says “Ki” comes from Kigwema, “Sa” from Phesama and “ma” means village, and that the state government built the heritage village on their land. The department’s page gives the distance from Kohima as about 10 kilometres. A PTI report of 9 December 2024 and Sahapedia both say 12 kilometres, so the figure depends on where you start measuring.

The department says the complex has sixteen houses, one for each of 16 recognised Naga tribes. Each is a morung, which the department glosses as a youth dormitory, a traditional Naga building. During the festival the tribes use the village as a shared stage, with dress, headgear and food that each presents as its own.

The complex also holds a World War II museum, a Bamboo Heritage Hall, a Bamboo Pavilion, a kids’ carnival, food courts and a stadium for concerts, the department’s page says.

Tribe counts differ from source to source. The tourism department and Sahapedia say 16. Outlook counts 17 major tribes. A PTI report on the 2025 edition, carried by the Tribune, and All India Radio on the 2024 edition both say 18.

Ten days at Kisama and beyond

The programme changes each year. For 2024, PTI reported performances by all the tribes, traditional games and sports, Naga cuisine, and an evening music festival, under the theme “Cultural Connect” from the Department of Art and Culture. The same report named the UK, Wales, Peru, the USA and Japan as partner countries and Telangana and Sikkim as partner states.

In 2025 the Tribune listed six partner countries, France, the United Kingdom, Malta, Austria, Ireland and Switzerland, with Arunachal Pradesh as partner state. The same festival spilled beyond Kisama. A carnival ran in Dimapur from 6 December, an extension ran at the Konyak Heritage Village in Mon district from 8 to 10 December, and the Doyang Festival took place in Wokha, the Tribune reported. The October 2026 reports we opened name no partner country or partner state for the 27th edition.

The Directorate of Tourism has also set the 2026 preparation timetable. Its Director told tribal bodies, called hohos, on 22 October 2026 that the plastic-free zone at Kisama continues, that food stall space is limited and that car passes should be requested in advance. The tribes were asked to finish renovating their morungs by the second week of November.

How many people come

The counts include local visitors, who are the largest group in every edition below. The totals are the figures the press reported for each edition.

The 2018 and 2019 rows come from the Morung Express’s 2019 report, which called the 2019 figure a record, and the 2024 row from the Eastern Mirror. The 2025 row is from the Morung Express, which splits the total into 1,55,535 locals, 56,431 domestic tourists and 2,528 foreign visitors and says the final day, 10 December, drew the highest single-day count, 33,535. The Morung Express adds that 2025 sits 4.1 per cent above 2024 but below the 2.82 lakh of 2019. We found no 2020 to 2023 final totals in the pages we opened and print none.

Tourism Department data, published in the Morung Express on 14 March 2026, put Nagaland’s total tourist arrivals in 2025 at 1,32,853, of whom 56,431 domestic and 2,528 foreign tourists came for the festival. That is about 44 per cent of the year’s domestic arrivals, and December alone accounted for 63.5 per cent of the year’s visitors.

On money, the Tribune reported on 30 November 2025 that the official figure for the previous year was about Rs 189 crore, mostly from the unorganised sector, and that the Tourism Minister believed the actual earnings were higher.

Getting to Kisama

The nearest airport and railway station are both in Dimapur, about 70 kilometres from Kohima and roughly an hour and a half by road, the Eastern Mirror’s visitor guide of 26 November 2025 says. The Airports Authority of India says Dimapur Airport, code DMU, is Nagaland’s only civil airport and was built during the Second World War. Kisama lies about 12 kilometres south of Kohima on the Kohima to Imphal road, NH-29, the Tribune’s PTI report says.

Permits for Indian and foreign visitors

An Indian visitor needs an Inner Line Permit. The state’s permit portal says the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation of 1873 requires anyone who is not an indigenous inhabitant of Nagaland to hold one, whether an Indian citizen or a foreigner. We read the portal’s FAQ on 28 October 2026. For a domestic tourist the fee is Rs 200 and the permit lasts 30 days. Payment gateway charges may be added. Applicants register on ilp.nagaland.gov.in with a phone number, verify it with a one-time code and fill in the form. Manual applications go through Nagaland Houses or the Deputy Commissioner’s office in the district. Tourists do not need a guarantor but must name a local contact, and the portal says tourist applications sent in working hours may be approved within 4 hours. Our state profile of Nagaland covers the law behind the permit. Ladakh dropped its permit for Indian citizens in 2021, as our Ladakh first-visit guide records.

For a foreign tourist the same portal lists Rs 500 for 30 days. The Eastern Mirror’s guide gave Rs 300, so go by the portal. Foreigners also need a Protected Area Permit, applied for on the e-FRRO portal within 24 hours of arrival, the same guide says. For the 26th festival the Ministry of Home Affairs relaxed that requirement for tourism from 1 December to midnight on 10 December 2025. Citizens of Afghanistan, China and Pakistan still needed prior approval, and the state was told to monitor visiting foreigners closely, the Eastern Mirror reported on 29 November 2025. The Tribune quoted the Tourism Minister differently, saying the permit stayed mandatory but could be had at airport counters in about 15 minutes. That order covered one edition. We found no order for 2026 in the pages we opened, so check the Ministry of Home Affairs and the state’s tourism site before booking.

The entry charge in 2025 was Rs 150 per head for every visitor category at Kisama, according to the Director of Tourism quoted by PTI. We found no 2026 ticket price on the pages we read, including the tourism site, which links a “Ticket to Hornbill” page without a price.

The Directorate of Tourism is on Raj Bhawan Road in Kohima, and its site lists the phone number +91 370 2243124 and the email [email protected].

What is still being decided for 2026

On 26 October 2026 the Nagaland Post reported that a proposal to run the Kisama Heritage Village through a public-private partnership is at a preliminary stage, with stakeholder consultations to come before any decision. The Morung Express reported on 22 October that some hohos oppose the State Cabinet’s decision to privatise the Kisama complex, saying it could harm Naga culture and traditions, and want the terms shared with them before a separate consultative meeting. The Commissioner and Secretary for Tourism told them the hohos’ role is essential to the festival and that the department would raise the rising cost of morung renovation with higher authorities.