Cusp dates

The Gemini and Cancer cusp

The Gemini and Cancer cusp falls on June 20 and June 21. Most tables give June 20 to Gemini and June 21 to Cancer, but the Sun moves from one sign to the other at a single moment, and that moment changes from year to year.

The dates

Gemini runs May 21–June 20 and Cancer runs June 21–July 22 in the standard tropical table this site uses for every tool and page. The cusp days are the last standard day of Gemini and the first standard day of Cancer. If your birthday is on any other day you do not need this page. Your sign is in the Gemini guide or the Cancer guide.

When the Sun enters Cancer, 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 Cancer drifts against the clock. In the data on this site it arrives 5 hours 46 minutes later on the clock in 2027 than in 2026, and 18 hours 9 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 June 20 or June 21 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 2028. The Sun entered Cancer at 20:02 UTC on June 20. In Vancouver the clocks read 1:02 pm on June 20, so someone born in Vancouver later that day was born a Cancer even though the date on their birth certificate is the last standard day of Gemini.

It works the other way too. In 2026 the change reached Toronto at 4:25 am local time on June 21, so a baby born in Toronto on June 21 before 4:25 am is still a Gemini, even though most tables would call June 21 a Cancer 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 Cancer that year. Before that moment you are a Gemini, and from it onward you are a Cancer.

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's move into Cancer is the June solstice. At that moment the Sun reaches its furthest point north of the celestial equator, which gives the northern hemisphere its longest day and the southern hemisphere its shortest. Astrologers call the point zero degrees Cancer, one of the four cardinal points of the zodiac. Gemini, mutable air ruled by Mercury, gives way to Cancer, cardinal water ruled by the Moon, one of the two luminaries, so the boundary runs from head to heart in the usual shorthand.

How popular astrology reads this cusp

Popular astrology reads someone born near this cusp as chatty but sensitive, quick with words and quick to feel. Gary Goldschneider's book The Secret Language of Birthdays calls the week around this change the Cusp of Magic. People born on June 20 or 21 often notice that the Cancer description of family and home fits them, and so does Gemini's restless curiosity. The tradition settles it simply: the solstice time for your birth year, in your birth time zone, decides the sign.

Read more

Read the Gemini guide and the Cancer guide, see the June zodiac calendar, or go back to all 12 cusps.