Cusp dates

The Aries and Taurus cusp

The Aries and Taurus cusp falls on April 19 and April 20. Most tables give April 19 to Aries and April 20 to Taurus, but the Sun moves from one sign to the other at a single moment, and that moment changes from year to year.

The dates

Aries runs March 21–April 19 and Taurus runs April 20–May 20 in the standard tropical table this site uses for every tool and page. The cusp days are the last standard day of Aries and the first standard day of Taurus. If your birthday is on any other day you do not need this page. Your sign is in the Aries guide or the Taurus guide.

When the Sun enters Taurus, 2026 to 2028

Exact times from the ingress data on this site, shown in UTC and in four local time zones.

Swipe the table sideways →

Why the year matters

The Sun takes about 365 days, 5 hours and 49 minutes to come back to the same point on the ecliptic, but a calendar year has 365 days, or 366 in a leap year. So the moment the Sun enters Taurus drifts against the clock. In the data on this site it arrives 5 hours 39 minutes later on the clock in 2027 than in 2026, and 18 hours 8 minutes earlier on the clock in 2028 than in 2027, because February 29 falls between the two dates. Leap days pull it back every four years, which is why the change keeps landing on April 19 or April 20 instead of wandering off. The Moon and the other planets tug the Earth slightly, so the figures are never quite regular.

Why birth time and time zone matter

Take 2026. The Sun entered Taurus at 01:39 UTC on April 20. In Vancouver the clocks read 6:39 pm on April 19, so someone born in Vancouver later that day was born a Taurus even though the date on their birth certificate is the last standard day of Aries.

It works the other way too. In 2026 the change reached London at 2:39 am local time on April 20, so a baby born in London on April 20 before 2:39 am is still an Aries, even though most tables would call April 20 a Taurus birthday.

This is why the table above gives four cities. The same instant falls at different local times, and near midnight it falls on different dates. Daylight saving time moves the local clock as well, and the times above already allow for it.

How to check your sign

1. Find your birth date, the time on your birth record and the place you were born.
2. Convert that local time to UTC. Remember daylight saving time if it was in force that day.
3. Compare it with the time the Sun entered Taurus that year. Before that moment you are an Aries, and from it onward you are a Taurus.

For 2026, 2027 and 2028 the birthday sign lookup and the year calendars (2026, 2027, 2028) list the exact times. The data on this site covers those three years only. For any other birth year you need an ephemeris or a chart calculator that takes your birth time and place.

Where this cusp sits in the year

The Sun leaves Aries for Taurus about a month after the March equinox, when spring in the northern hemisphere is well under way. Aries is cardinal fire, ruled by Mars, the sign of starting. Taurus is fixed earth, ruled by Venus, the sign of keeping. Astrologers often describe this boundary as the moment the season stops sprouting and starts growing roots, and it is the first change in the year from a fire sign to an earth sign.

How popular astrology reads this cusp

Popular astrology reads someone born near this cusp as a person with Aries's push and Taurus's staying power: quick to decide, slow to let go. Gary Goldschneider's book The Secret Language of Birthdays calls the week around this change the Cusp of Power. Readers on this boundary sometimes find the Aries description too restless and the Taurus one too placid, which is part of why the cusp idea appeals. Traditional astrology still gives one Sun sign, set by the Sun's exact position at birth.

Read more

Read the Aries guide and the Taurus guide, see the April zodiac calendar, or go back to all 12 cusps.