The quickest way to find your birth time is your birth certificate. In the US, many state records include the time, and it usually shows on the full long-form copy from the state vital records office; in Scotland, every birth certificate shows it. If yours doesn't, try hospital records, a baby book or a parent's memory next, and if nothing turns up, an astrologer can estimate the time through rectification.
Here's why the time matters, where to look country by country, and what to do if the trail goes cold.
Why the time matters
Your birth date is enough for your Sun sign and, in most cases, for the signs of the planets. Two parts of a chart need the clock.
- Your rising sign changes about every two hours on average, and the twelve houses of the chart turn with it. Without a time, a chart has no reliable rising sign and no houses. Our guide to the sun, moon and rising sign difference explains what the rising sign adds.
- Your Moon moves about half a degree an hour, so it can change sign during the day you were born. The moon sign calculator will tell you if yours did.
A time accurate to within a few minutes is ideal. A time rounded to the nearest hour is still useful, as long as you remember it's approximate. To see how sensitive your own chart is, enter your time and then a time thirty minutes either side into the rising sign calculator and compare.
Birth certificates: where the time appears
United States
The US Standard Certificate of Live Birth, the national model that states base their own certificates on, includes a box for the time of birth, so the time is usually in your state's record. Whether it's on the copy in your drawer is another matter. Short-form or abstract certificates, the compact copies many people carry, often leave it off. The long-form copy, sometimes called the vault copy, reproduces the original record and is the one to ask for.
Order it from the vital records office of the state where you were born, and say on the application that you need the time of birth. Rules on who may order a copy and what it costs vary by state, but you can normally request your own.
England and Wales
Standard birth certificates in England and Wales don't show a time, with one exception: multiple births. When twins or triplets are registered, the time of each birth is recorded, so a time on an English or Welsh certificate usually means the person was a twin. For everyone else, the next stop is hospital and family records.
Scotland
Scottish birth entries record the time of birth for everyone, not only for twins. Ask for the full certificate, an exact copy of the register entry, rather than a shorter abbreviated version, which may leave the time out.
Other countries
Practice varies widely. In France, the law requires the birth record to state the day, hour and place of birth, and the hour appears on the full copy, the copie intégrale, rather than on shorter extracts. Elsewhere, ask the civil registry of the place you were born exactly what the full record contains before you order it.
Hospital records, baby books and family memory
If the certificate is silent, these are the next places to look, roughly in order of reliability.
- Hospital records. The delivery record will have the time. It usually sits in your birth mother's maternity notes as well as in your own newborn record, and privacy rules may mean she has to request it or give her consent. Hospitals keep records for a limited period, so very old ones may be gone, but a letter to the medical records or health information department costs little.
- Baby books and keepsakes. Many parents wrote the time in a baby book, on a hospital bracelet or crib card, or in a birth announcement sent to friends or printed in a local paper.
- Family papers. Letters, diaries, family Bibles and christening records sometimes note the hour.
- Photos and messages. For anyone born since phones started stamping everything with the time, a parent's photos and texts from the day can narrow things down.
- Memory. Ask the people who were there, and ask what else was happening: "just after the shift change", "before the evening news". A memory tied to an event tends to be more reliable than a bare "around three".
Astrologers grade birth data for exactly this reason. The Rodden Rating system, developed by the astrologer Lois Rodden, gives its top grade, AA, to times from a birth certificate or similar official record, and a lower grade, A, to times quoted from memory. If you're working from a parent's recollection, make a note of it beside your chart.
How exact does it need to be?
It depends on what you want to read. Your Sun, and usually your Moon and planets, come out fine from the date alone. Your rising sign is fine from a rough time if it falls in the middle of a sign, and unreliable if it falls near a boundary. House positions are the most sensitive of all.
If you only have a range, such as "sometime in the morning", enter the start, middle and end of it into a free birth chart and see what changes. Anything that stays put across the range you can rely on. Anything that moves, treat as a question mark until you find more.
When nothing turns up: rectification
Rectification is the last resort. An astrologer works backward from your life, taking the dates of major events such as moves, marriages, career changes, losses and accidents, and tests candidate birth times to see which one lines those events up with the transits and progressions they'd expect. It takes time, it usually costs money, and two astrologers can arrive at different answers, so treat any rectified time as an estimate rather than a fact.
The free alternative is to work without a time. Many astrologers set an unknown time to noon, which keeps the Moon within about seven degrees of its true position, and read the planets in their signs while leaving the rising sign and houses aside. Others use a "solar chart", which puts the Sun on the ascendant. Either way, there's plenty to read: our guide on how to read a birth chart covers the parts that don't depend on the clock, and once you have a time, our piece on why you might not relate to your zodiac sign shows what a Moon or rising sign can change.
Questions readers ask
Can I get a birth chart without a birth time?
Yes. You'll get your Sun, your Moon (unless it changed sign that day) and the planets in their signs, but no reliable rising sign or houses. A noon chart is the usual stand-in, and our guide to what your zodiac sign is covers what the date alone can tell you.
Is the time on my certificate local time?
Yes. It's the clock time where you were born, including any daylight saving time in force, and in some countries wartime clock changes too. Good chart software converts it for you, but if you were born somewhere with unusual clock rules, check the time zone the software chose.
What if two sources give different times?
Prefer a record written at the time, usually the certificate or the hospital notes, over anyone's memory. If two documents disagree, try both in a chart and see which details actually change.
Does my rising sign really change that fast?
On average, yes: the twelve signs rise in about 24 hours, about two hours each. Some signs rise faster than others depending on your latitude, so a few minutes matter more for some birth times than for others.
