Find your birthday in the list below and you have your zodiac sign: it's the sign the Sun was in on the day you were born. If your birthday is the first or last day of a sign, check a birth chart before you settle it, because the boundary moves by a day in some years.
- Aries: March 21 to April 19
- Taurus: April 20 to May 20
- Gemini: May 21 to June 20
- Cancer: June 21 to July 22
- Leo: July 23 to August 22
- Virgo: August 23 to September 22
- Libra: September 23 to October 22
- Scorpio: October 23 to November 21
- Sagittarius: November 22 to December 21
- Capricorn: December 22 to January 19
- Aquarius: January 20 to February 18
- Pisces: February 19 to March 20
Star sign, sun sign and zodiac sign mean the same thing in everyday use. Whichever phrase a friend, a quiz or a dating profile uses, this is the sign they're asking about. If you'd rather not count dates, the box at the top of our daily horoscopes page finds your sign from your birthday.
The rest of this page covers the questions that usually come next: what to do with a cusp birthday, what the sign actually describes, and why a different site may have given you a different answer.
Born on the cusp? How to be sure
The dates above are a rounding. The Sun moves through the zodiac at about one degree a day and crosses into the next sign at a particular instant, not at midnight. Because the calendar year doesn't divide evenly into Earth's orbit, that instant drifts by several hours across each four-year leap cycle, and time zones shift it again. So the Sun might enter Scorpio on the evening of October 22 one year and the morning of October 23 the next.
For most birthdays this makes no difference. If yours is within a day of a boundary, though, no table can decide for you. Enter your date, time and place into a free birth chart and read the Sun's position: "Sun 29° Libra" means you're a Libra, late in the sign, and "Sun 0° Scorpio" means you're a Scorpio, right at the start.
You are one sign, not a blend of two. You may still recognize yourself in the neighbor, and there are real reasons for that: Mercury and Venus travel close to the Sun, so on a cusp birthday they often sit in the next sign over. Our piece on zodiac cusp signs explains the details.
What your sign tells you
Your sign is a 30-degree slice of the Sun's yearly path through the sky, and astrologers describe each slice with three labels: an element, a modality and a ruling planet.
| Sign | Symbol | Element | Modality | Ruler |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aries | Ram | Fire | Cardinal | Mars |
| Taurus | Bull | Earth | Fixed | Venus |
| Gemini | Twins | Air | Mutable | Mercury |
| Cancer | Crab | Water | Cardinal | Moon |
| Leo | Lion | Fire | Fixed | Sun |
| Virgo | Maiden | Earth | Mutable | Mercury |
| Libra | Scales | Air | Cardinal | Venus |
| Scorpio | Scorpion | Water | Fixed | Pluto (traditionally Mars) |
| Sagittarius | Archer | Fire | Mutable | Jupiter |
| Capricorn | Sea-goat | Earth | Cardinal | Saturn |
| Aquarius | Water bearer | Air | Fixed | Uranus (traditionally Saturn) |
| Pisces | Fishes | Water | Mutable | Neptune (traditionally Jupiter) |
The element describes temperament: fire acts, earth builds, air thinks and talks, water feels. The modality describes style: cardinal signs start things, fixed signs keep them going, mutable signs adapt them. The ruler colors the rest, which is why a Libra and a Taurus, both ruled by Venus, share a taste for beauty but go about it differently. For a fuller portrait of each sign, start with our zodiac signs guide.
Treat the description as a first sketch. Astrology is a lens for reflection, not a personality test that science has validated, and plenty of people find their Sun sign fits only in places.
Your other two signs: Moon and rising
When people say "your sign", they mean the Sun. But a birth chart places the Moon and every planet in a sign too, and two of those come up again and again.
- Your Moon sign describes, in astrological terms, what you need to feel safe and how you react before you've had time to think. The Moon changes sign about every two and a half days, so you need your birth date and sometimes your birth time. The moon sign calculator finds it.
- Your rising sign, or ascendant, is the sign that was coming up over the eastern horizon when you were born. It changes about every two hours, so it needs an accurate birth time. Astrologers read it as your manner: the first impression you make, the way you walk into a room.
If you don't know when you were born, our guide on how to find your birth time lists the places to look, from long-form birth certificates to hospital records and baby books.
Why another site gave you a different sign
A handful of reasons explain almost every mix-up.
- A cusp date. One table starts Scorpio on October 23, another on October 24. Only a chart settles a boundary birthday.
- A different zodiac. Vedic (Indian) astrology uses the sidereal zodiac, which sits about 24 degrees behind the Western one, so most people move back one sign. Our guide to your Vedic zodiac sign explains what changes and why.
- A thirteenth-sign headline. Every few years a story claims Ophiuchus is a new sign. It's a constellation the Sun passes through, not a sign, and the Western zodiac of signs is tied to the seasons rather than to the stars. Your sign hasn't changed.
- A Chinese zodiac result. If a site asked for your birth year and gave you an animal, that's a separate system altogether, with its own twelve signs.
Questions readers ask
What zodiac sign am I if I was born on the cusp?
You're one sign: the one the Sun was in at the moment of your birth. Check it in a birth chart using your birth time and place. If you don't know the time and the Sun changed sign on your birthday, read both signs while you keep looking for the time.
Is my star sign the same as my zodiac sign?
Yes. "Star sign" is the everyday British phrase, "zodiac sign" is the general term and "sun sign" is the astrologer's precise one. All three point to the same sign in the list at the top of this page.
Can my zodiac sign change?
Not in Western astrology. Your Sun sign is fixed by the date, time and place of your birth. What can change is the system you're reading: a Vedic chart may give you a different Sun sign because it measures the zodiac from the stars, not the seasons.
Which zodiac sign goes with my birth month?
Two of them. Every month is split between two signs, with the change falling between about the 19th and the 23rd. January, for example, starts in Capricorn and ends in Aquarius. Our guide to zodiac signs by month lists all twelve months.
