Chinese zodiac calculator

How to use

• Birth year: enter the year you were born to see the animal, element and stem-branch name, plus other years with the same sign.
• Birth date: use this if you were born in January or February. The calculator compares your birthday with Lunar New Year in that year. If you were born before it, you get the previous year’s sign, and the result tells you when your zodiac year started and ended.

How it works

The Chinese calendar names years with a 60-year cycle that pairs 10 heavenly stems with 12 earthly branches. Each branch is one of the 12 animals, in this order: Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, Pig.

• Animal: the remainder of (year − 4) ÷ 12. 0 is the Rat, 6 is the Horse, 11 is the Pig.
• Stem: the remainder of (year − 4) ÷ 10. 0 is Jia, 2 is Bing, 9 is Gui.
• Element: Jia and Yi are Wood, Bing and Ding are Fire, Wu and Ji are Earth, Geng and Xin are Metal, Ren and Gui are Water. The first stem of each pair is yang, the second is yin.

For 2026, (2026 − 4) ÷ 12 leaves 6, the Horse, and ÷ 10 leaves 2, Bing, which is yang Fire. So 2026 is the year of the Fire Horse, Bing-wu (丙午).

Lunar New Year moves between January 21 and February 20, so there is no simple formula for it. The calculator uses the Hong Kong Observatory’s dates for 1901 to 2100, calculated for China Standard Time (UTC+8).

Examples

The 12 signs and their recent years

Each year runs from that year’s Lunar New Year to the day before the next one. The full chart below lists the exact dates.