Zodiac Sign Calculator

Western zodiac signs and dates

Your Western star sign is set by the day and month you were born, using these conventional date ranges:

Each sign belongs to one of four elements (fire, earth, air and water) and one of three modalities: cardinal signs start each season, fixed signs fall in the middle of it, and mutable signs close it. The calculator shows both for your sign.

Born on a cusp?

The dates above are the conventional ranges, but the exact moment the Sun moves from one sign into the next changes slightly from year to year, by up to about a day. If you were born on or right next to a boundary date, you were born on a “cusp”. Your exact sign then depends on your birth year and time of birth, and an astrologer would check it against an ephemeris, a table of where the Sun was at each moment. The calculator tells you when your birthday is on a cusp.

Chinese zodiac: animals, elements and Lunar New Year

The Chinese zodiac assigns an animal to each year in a 12-year cycle: Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog and Pig. Each year also has one of five elements (wood, fire, earth, metal and water) and is either yin or yang, which together make a 60-year cycle.

Crucially, the year changes at Lunar New Year, not on 1 January. Lunar New Year always falls between 21 January and 20 February, so if you were born in January or early February you may belong to the previous year’s animal. The calculator looks up the exact Lunar New Year date for your birth year, for every year from 1899 to 2101.

Here are recent and upcoming Lunar New Year dates, with the sign each one begins:

Tropical and sidereal zodiacs, and Ophiuchus

Western astrology uses the tropical zodiac, which is tied to the seasons: Aries always begins at the March equinox. Over thousands of years the Earth’s axis slowly wobbles, so the constellations that gave the signs their names have drifted away from those dates by almost a whole sign. Vedic (Indian) astrology uses a sidereal zodiac that follows the constellations instead, so your sign can differ between the two systems.

Every few years, a story claims that a 13th sign, Ophiuchus, has been added. When the story went viral in 2020, NASA replied that it hadn’t changed any zodiac signs: the Sun does pass through the constellation Ophiuchus each year, but astrology’s 12 signs were never the same thing as the uneven constellations themselves (CNN).

A note on astrology

Zodiac signs are a cultural tradition with a long history, and plenty of people enjoy them. There’s no scientific evidence that they predict personality or fortune, so take any horoscope lightly. The dates, though, are real, and the calculator gets them right.

Last reviewed on 29 October 2026 by the Ageculator Team. See how we calculate.