Cusp dates

The Pisces and Aries cusp

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

The dates

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

When the Sun enters Aries, 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 Aries 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 March 20 or March 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 2026. The Sun entered Aries at 14:46 UTC on March 20. In Vancouver the clocks read 7:46 am on March 20, so someone born in Vancouver later that day was born an Aries even though the date on their birth certificate is the last standard day of Pisces.

It works the other way too. In 2027 the change reached Sydney at 7:25 am local time on March 21, so a baby born in Sydney on March 21 before 7:25 am is still a Pisces, even though most tables would call March 21 an Aries 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 Aries that year. Before that moment you are a Pisces, and from it onward you are an Aries.

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

This is the cusp where the tropical zodiac starts over. The Sun's move into Aries is the March equinox, the moment it crosses the celestial equator heading north, and astrologers call that point zero degrees Aries. In the northern hemisphere it marks the first day of spring. Pisces, the last sign, is mutable water and ruled by Jupiter in traditional astrology and by Neptune in modern astrology. Aries, the first sign, is cardinal fire ruled by Mars. So this boundary takes you from the end of the wheel to the beginning, and from water to fire.

How popular astrology reads this cusp

People born near this boundary often describe themselves as a soft-hearted person with a short fuse, or a dreamer who suddenly acts. That is how popular astrology reads the mix of Pisces's sympathy and Aries's drive. Gary Goldschneider's book The Secret Language of Birthdays calls the week around this change the Cusp of Rebirth. It is a catchy name for a modern idea. Traditional astrology gives you one Sun sign, and the exact equinox time for your birth year decides which one it is.

Read more

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