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Happy New Year: How to Write the New Year Greeting

Neha Karve

Updated September 2, 2023

To wish someone well in January, you don’t need an apostrophe or s: the New Year greeting is “Happy New Year,” not “Happy New Year’s” or “Happy New Years.”

Singular “year”

A single year is new at a time. Use the singular noun year instead of the plural noun years in your greeting when you wish someone a happy new year.

No apostrophe

An apostrophe denotes a possessive or a contraction. “Happy New Year” contains neither, so don’t use an apostrophe and s in the greeting.

Capital letters

When the greeting “Happy New Year” appears by itself, all its words are capitalized, except in formal styles, where they are lowercased to sound less exuberant. Both styles are acceptable.

When the phrase “happy new year” appears within the flow of a larger sentence, don’t capitalize it.

The phrase “New Year” may be capitalized to refer to the year about to start or the year that has just started (see Merriam-Webster, Oxford, or Cambridge).

In short, when “happy new year” is a standalone greeting, capitalize the individual words in everyday usage but lowercase in formal writing.

And when “happy new year” is part of a larger sentence, don’t capitalize the word “happy.” You may capitalize the phrase “new year,” although it is generally lowercased as well.