Chinese Zodiac Calculator

Your animal sign depends on the Lunar New Year, not January 1. Enter a full birth date to get the right animal, element and yin–yang, then compare two signs.

For entertainment and self-reflection: The calendar arithmetic is exact; the personality and compatibility notes are traditional folklore summarized for fun. Nothing on this page is a prediction, and it is not financial, medical, psychological or legal advice. Use it as a prompt for thought, not as a basis for decisions.

How the calculator finds your animal

The Chinese zodiac is a cycle of twelve animals that label years in turn: Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog and Pig. The catch is that the zodiac year does not start on January 1. It starts on the Lunar New Year, the second new moon after the winter solstice as reckoned in China's time zone, which can fall anywhere between January 21 and February 20. Anyone born in January or early to mid February therefore needs to check the exact date before trusting a simple year chart.

This calculator carries a table of every Lunar New Year date from 1900 to 2099, taken from the lunar calendar data published by the Hong Kong Observatory. We cross-checked the whole table against an independent astronomical calculation of new moons and solstices: all 200 years agree except four that the simple "second new moon" rule gets wrong for well-understood reasons (years such as 1985 and 2015, where the new moon fell on the solstice day itself, and 2034, which follows a rare leap eleventh month). In each of those cases the published calendar date is the one we use. If your birthday falls before the Lunar New Year of your birth year, you belong to the previous year's animal.

Next comes the element. Each year also carries one of ten "heavenly stems", which pair up into the five elements of Chinese cosmology: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water, each in a yang and a yin form. Combined with the twelve "earthly branches" (the animals), the stems produce a 60-year cycle. A quick rule of thumb: years ending in 0 or 1 are Metal, 2 or 3 Water, 4 or 5 Wood, 6 or 7 Fire, and 8 or 9 Earth, with even years yang and odd years yin. The calculator applies those rules to the zodiac year, not the calendar year, so a person born on January 20, 1985 is correctly shown as a Wood Rat of 1984.

Lunar New Year dates, 1996 to 2031

Worked example

Take a birth date of February 2, 1990. A year chart would say 1990 is the Year of the Horse, but the Lunar New Year in 1990 fell on January 27, so February 2 is already inside the Horse year: the answer is Metal Horse (yang), stem–branch name Geng-Wu. Now take February 2, 1989. The Lunar New Year that year was February 6, four days later, so this person is still in the previous zodiac year, which is the Year of the Dragon, Earth Dragon (Wu-Chen). Two people born on the same day of the year, a year apart, can end up two signs apart once the moving New Year is taken into account.

Add a second birth date and the calculator looks up how the two animals relate in the traditional scheme. A Horse and a Dog, for example, share the "trine" of Tiger, Horse and Dog, which folklore treats as one of the friendliest pairings. A Horse and a Rat sit directly opposite each other on the twelve-sign wheel, which the tradition calls a clash.

How compatibility is worked out

Traditional Chinese compatibility is not a love score. It is a set of relationships between positions on the twelve-branch circle, used in almanacs and in the older practice of matching birth charts for marriage. The four trines (Rat–Dragon–Monkey, Ox–Snake–Rooster, Tiger–Horse–Dog, Rabbit–Goat–Pig) are signs four places apart, seen as natural allies. The six harmonies pair Rat with Ox, Tiger with Pig, Rabbit with Dog, Dragon with Rooster, Snake with Monkey and Horse with Goat. A clash is a sign six places away, directly opposite. A harm (sometimes called a "six harms" pairing) is thought to bring friction or misunderstanding: Rat–Goat, Ox–Horse, Tiger–Snake, Rabbit–Dragon, Monkey–Pig and Rooster–Dog. Pairings that fit none of these are treated as neutral. Two people of the same sign are said to understand each other easily, though some traditions note a "self-punishment" for a few signs.

Real relationships are built from habits, communication and shared values, not from birth years. If you use this part of the calculator, treat it the way you would a fortune cookie: a playful conversation starter.

Where the twelve animals come from

The twelve earthly branches are far older than their animals. They appear on Shang dynasty oracle bones more than 3,000 years ago as a counting system for days, months and hours, combined with the ten heavenly stems to make the sixty-day cycle. The pairing of branches with animals is documented by the late Warring States and early Han periods; bamboo-slip almanacs found at Shuihudi, dating to the third century BC, already list animals alongside the branches, and the philosopher Wang Chong discussed them in the first century AD. The familiar story of the Great Race, in which the Jade Emperor ranks the animals by the order they crossed a river and the clever Rat rides on the Ox's back to win, is a later folk tale that explains the order rather than its historical source.

The same cycle travelled across East and Southeast Asia, with local variations: Vietnam has a Cat in place of the Rabbit and a Water Buffalo in place of the Ox, and some traditions use a Sheep or Ram where others use a Goat. The underlying Chinese character can mean any of these, which is why you will see all three names in English.

A note on February 4 and BaZi

There is a second convention. In Chinese solar-term astrology, including the "Four Pillars of Destiny" (BaZi), the year changes not at Lunar New Year but at Lichun, the "Start of Spring" solar term, around February 4 each year. For most people the two conventions give the same animal. If you were born between late January and about February 19, they might not. The calculator shows a note when your birth date falls in that window, so you can see both answers. For everyday zodiac questions (what year am I, what is my animal for the New Year greeting) the Lunar New Year rule is the one used by most families and the one this page follows.

Using your sign for self-reflection

The traits traditionally attached to each animal are broad and flattering, which is part of their charm. Rather than reading them as a description of who you are, try using them as questions. If you are an Ox, said to be steady and hard-working, ask where steadiness has helped you this year and where it has kept you in a rut. If you are a Monkey, known for wit and inventiveness, ask which clever idea deserves more follow-through. Many families also use the arrival of their zodiac year, every twelfth birthday year, as a natural point to look back over the past cycle: twelve years is long enough to see real change in work, home and relationships.

For planning, the most useful thing here is plain calendar knowledge: when Lunar New Year falls, so you can send greetings to friends, colleagues and clients on the right day, and when your own sign's year comes round. The next Year of the Horse begins on February 17, 2026, and the Goat follows on February 6, 2027.

Frequently asked questions

Sources and further reading

• Hong Kong Observatory, Gregorian–Lunar Calendar Conversion Table (lunar calendar data 1901–2100).
• Wikipedia: "Chinese zodiac", "Chinese calendar", "Sexagenary cycle", "Earthly Branches", "Lichun".
• Aslaksen, H. "The Mathematics of the Chinese Calendar", National University of Singapore (explains the 1985/2033 edge cases).
• Shuihudi Qin bamboo slips, Rishu (daybook), late third century BC, excavated 1975; Wang Chong, Lunheng, first century AD.
• Meeus, J. Astronomical Algorithms (new moon and solstice calculations used for our cross-check).

By Stanley King · About 8calc · Last reviewed October 2026

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