Cusp dates

The Leo and Virgo cusp

The Leo and Virgo cusp falls on August 22 and August 23. Most tables give August 22 to Leo and August 23 to Virgo, but the Sun moves from one sign to the other at a single moment, and that moment changes from year to year.

The dates

Leo runs July 23–August 22 and Virgo runs August 23–September 22 in the standard tropical table this site uses for every tool and page. The cusp days are the last standard day of Leo and the first standard day of Virgo. If your birthday is on any other day you do not need this page. Your sign is in the Leo guide or the Virgo guide.

When the Sun enters Virgo, 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 Virgo drifts against the clock. In the data on this site it arrives 5 hours 55 minutes later on the clock in 2027 than in 2026, and 18 hours 13 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 August 22 or August 23 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 Virgo at 02:19 UTC on August 23. In Vancouver the clocks read 7:19 pm on August 22, so someone born in Vancouver later that day was born a Virgo even though the date on their birth certificate is the last standard day of Leo.

It works the other way too. In 2026 the change reached London at 3:19 am local time on August 23, so a baby born in London on August 23 before 3:19 am is still a Leo, even though most tables would call August 23 a Virgo 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 Virgo that year. Before that moment you are a Leo, and from it onward you are a Virgo.

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

In late August the Sun moves from Leo into Virgo, as northern summer starts to tip toward harvest time. Leo is fixed fire ruled by the Sun, one of the two luminaries. Virgo is mutable earth ruled by Mercury. Virgo's symbol, the maiden often shown holding a sheaf of grain, ties the sign to the harvest, so this boundary is often described as the end of summer's show and the start of the work of bringing things in.

How popular astrology reads this cusp

Popular astrology reads someone born near this cusp as warm but exacting: Leo's generosity together with Virgo's eye for detail. Gary Goldschneider's book The Secret Language of Birthdays calls the week around this change the Cusp of Exposure, a nod to Leo's wish to be seen and Virgo's preference for staying in the background. That tension is a reading of the two signs, and the tradition still assigns one Sun sign by the exact moment of the change in your birth year.

Read more

Read the Leo guide and the Virgo guide, see the August zodiac calendar, or go back to all 12 cusps.