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Does the NMJL card change every year, and what actually changes?

Yes. The National Mah Jongg League publishes a new card every year, in recent years in April, and only hands printed on the current card can win. The hands change; the tiles, the rules of play and the way the card is read stay the same. Everyone at the table plays from the same card.

Answered by Prim. Last reviewed 2026-09-15.

A new card every spring

The card is not a reference you buy once. The National Mah Jongg League issues a fresh one every year, and in recent years it has appeared in April. Once a table adopts it, the old card is finished. A hand that won beautifully last spring is not a winning hand this spring unless it has been printed again, and very few players can say with confidence which ones were.

The rule that follows is simple and absolute. Only a hand printed on the current year's card can win, and everyone at the table plays from the same card. A player who declares a hand from an old card has declared Mahjong in error. A table may agree to play from a different card entirely; the rules of play still apply, and everyone still plays the same one.

What changes

The hands change. The lines inside each section are rewritten, and with them the value printed beside each line and whether it is exposed, marked X, or concealed, marked C. The year section changes by its very nature, because it is built around the digits of the year. On the 2026 card that section is built from a 2, a 0, a 2 and a 6, with Soap (White Dragon) standing in as the zero.

Because the lines change, so does the arithmetic of the whole card. The 2026 card has 55 lines in nine sections, and those lines open out into more than a thousand distinct winning hands once every suit arrangement is counted. Next year's numbers will be different.

What stays

The rules of the game do not change with the card. The set is still 152 tiles. The Charleston runs the same way. Jokers still go only into groups of three or more identical tiles, never into a single or a pair. Calling, exposing, dead hands and payment all carry across from one year to the next.

The way the card is read stays too. Colors still count suits rather than naming them, and the letters mean what they meant last year. The broad families of hands, even numbers, odd numbers, runs, winds and dragons, singles and pairs, tend to return, which is why a player who has learned to read one card can find their way around the next in an afternoon rather than a season.

What this means at your table

Settle the card before the first tile is washed. If a table mixes years, every declaration becomes an argument. When the new card arrives, give yourself a few sessions to stop reaching for last year's favorites, because old hands linger in the fingers long after the mind has let them go.

Keep the old card if you like, as a keepsake. Just keep it off the table.