Cusp dates
The Taurus and Gemini cusp
The Taurus and Gemini cusp falls on May 20 and May 21. Most tables give May 20 to Taurus and May 21 to Gemini, but the Sun moves from one sign to the other at a single moment, and that moment changes from year to year.
The dates
Taurus runs April 20–May 20 and Gemini runs May 21–June 20 in the standard tropical table this site uses for every tool and page. The cusp days are the last standard day of Taurus and the first standard day of Gemini. If your birthday is on any other day you do not need this page. Your sign is in the Taurus guide or the Gemini guide.
When the Sun enters Gemini, 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 →
| Year | UTC | Vancouver | Toronto | London | Sydney |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | May 21, 00:37 UTC | May 20, 5:37 pm | May 20, 8:37 pm | May 21, 1:37 am | May 21, 10:37 am |
| 2027 | May 21, 06:18 UTC | May 20, 11:18 pm | May 21, 2:18 am | May 21, 7:18 am | May 21, 4:18 pm |
| 2028 | May 20, 12:10 UTC | May 20, 5:10 am | May 20, 8:10 am | May 20, 1:10 pm | May 20, 10:10 pm |
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 Gemini drifts against the clock. In the data on this site it arrives 5 hours 41 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 May 20 or May 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 Gemini at 00:37 UTC on May 21. In Vancouver the clocks read 5:37 pm on May 20, so someone born in Vancouver later that day was born a Gemini even though the date on their birth certificate is the last standard day of Taurus.
It works the other way too. In 2026 the change reached Sydney at 10:37 am local time on May 21, so a baby born in Sydney on May 21 before 10:37 am is still a Taurus, even though most tables would call May 21 a Gemini 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
- Find your birth date, the time on your birth record and the place you were born.
- Convert that local time to UTC. Remember daylight saving time if it was in force that day.
- Compare it with the time the Sun entered Gemini that year. Before that moment you are a Taurus, and from it onward you are a Gemini.
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
Late in May the Sun moves from Taurus to Gemini, as northern spring turns toward summer. Taurus is fixed earth and ruled by Venus. Gemini is mutable air and ruled by Mercury. This is the boundary between the zodiac's most settled sign and one of its most changeable, and it is the first time in the year the Sun passes from earth into air.
How popular astrology reads this cusp
Popular astrology reads people born near here as practical talkers: Taurus's common sense with Gemini's curiosity. Gary Goldschneider's book The Secret Language of Birthdays calls the week around this change the Cusp of Energy. If you were born on May 20 or 21, you may recognise both a love of routine and a habit of wanting to know about everything. That is a reading of the two signs side by side, and tradition does not make it a thirteenth sign. Your Sun sign is whichever one the Sun was in at your birth minute.
Read more
Read the Taurus guide and the Gemini guide, see the May zodiac calendar, or go back to all 12 cusps.