Libra dates22 September to 23 October, starting at the equinox

No other sign has a start this easy to define. Libra begins at the instant the Sun crosses the sky's equator heading south, which astronomers call the September equinox and which sits at 180° of ecliptic longitude. The first second of Libra and the first second of astronomical autumn in the northern hemisphere are one event. Any almanac that prints the equinox time is printing the start of Libra.

Which calendar date that instant lands on is a closer call than for almost any other sign. Over the 80 years from 1951 to 2030, in US Eastern time, the equinox arrived on 22 September in 40 years and on 23 September in 40. An exact tie. Move west and the 22nd wins, because the same moment reads earlier on a Pacific clock: 51 of the 80 years there. Move east and the 23rd wins. London had a 23 September start in 58 years against 22 on the 22nd, and Sydney, where this equinox opens spring, saw Libra begin on the 23rd in 68 years, the 24th in 9 and the 22nd in just 3.

A single year makes the point. In 2026 the Sun reached 180° at 00:05 UTC on 23 September. On local clocks that was 8:05 pm on 22 September in New York, 5:05 pm on 22 September in Los Angeles, 1:05 am on 23 September in London and 10:05 am on 23 September in Sydney. A baby born at 9 pm on 22 September 2026 in New York was a Libra. One born at 9 pm on the same date in London was a Virgo, with four hours of Virgo still to run.

Why 22 September is taking over

The even split hides a trend. Libra began on 23 September, US Eastern time, in 8 of the ten years of the 1950s and in only 2 of the ten years 2021 to 2030. A four-year leap cycle averages 365.25 days, a little longer than the year of the seasons, so each equinox drifts earlier on the calendar until a century year drops its leap day. 1900 dropped it. 2000 kept it. So the drift has run uninterrupted for more than a century, decade by decade:

Los Angeles has already finished the change: Libra began on 22 September there in all 10 years from 2021 to 2030. The next correction is 2100, which will not be a leap year, and until then the 23rd keeps losing ground. Tables that still print "Libra, 23 September to 23 October" were right for a US birth in the 1950s and are a day late for most births now.

Equal night, nearly

Ptolemy names Aries and Libra the two equinoctial signs (Tetrabiblos I.11), "because when the sun is at the beginning of these signs he makes the nights exactly equal to the days". The geometry bears him out. The clock does not, quite. Sunrise and sunset are timed from the upper edge of the Sun's disc, and the air bends sunlight over the horizon, so at the latitude of New York or London the equinox still brings around ten minutes more daylight than dark. The day of truly equal light and dark falls a few days later, inside Libra.

The sign does not flip for the southern hemisphere: the instant that starts autumn in Toronto starts spring in Melbourne, and Libra in both. The scales, meanwhile, are younger than the stars behind them. Greek writers called this stretch of sky the Claws of the Scorpion, and the Balance as a figure of its own became standard only in the Roman period, a fitting emblem for the sign the Sun enters when day and night weigh the same.

It isn't. Libra is a little more common than an even share, and more common than the length of the sign would predict. The Shymea rarity study matched 62,187,026 US births from 2000 to 2014 to the exact ingress times and counted 5,297,033 Libras, 8.52% of the total. That makes Libra the fifth most common sign. A perfectly flat year would give every sign 8.33%.

The telling figure is the gap between astronomy and the birth registers. With the Sun in Libra for 30.39 days, the sign's fair share by length alone is 8.32%. The actual share in 2014 was 8.54%, a ratio of 1.026, so Libra collects more births than its length earns. Registers abroad put Libra in the same middle band: 8.49% of births in England and Wales in 2025 (fifth of 12), 8.50% in Canada in 2024 (sixth), 8.52% in Australia in 2023 (sixth) and 8.57% in New York City in 2024, where it came fourth.

Find the year and your zone's column; a birth between that year's Libra time and its Scorpio time is a Libra. The pattern runs opposite to the winter signs: the earliest Libra starts come in leap years (2020, 2024, 2028), because by September the extra day in February has already pushed the calendar forward, and the latest come the year before a leap year.

Every birthday from 24 September to 21 October was Libra in every year 1951 to 2030, in all four US zones and in the UK. The edge days need the year, the clock time and the place, and the zodiac sign calculator takes all three. Counted over those 80 years:

Of the two edges, 22 September is the trickier. In US Eastern time it was a whole day of Virgo in 40 years and a day on which the Sun changed sign in the other 40, but never a whole day of Libra, so a 22 September birthday is a Libra only if the birth came after that year's equinox time; the calculator checks it in seconds. 23 September is the reverse: a change-over day in 40 years and wholly Libra in 40. The Virgo dates and the 22 September cusp page works the same boundary from the Virgo side, and the September zodiac signs page goes through the month day by day.

The far edge is steadier. 23 October was the day the Sun left Libra in 65 of the 80 years in US Eastern time, and the Scorpio dates and the 23 October cusp page has the detail; for an October birthday near the change, put the time into the sign calculator and see the October zodiac signs for the rest of the month. Neither edge produces a blend. A Sun at 29° Virgo is a Virgo Sun and a Sun at 0° Libra is a Libra Sun, and if the birth time is unknown and the ingress fell that day, the sign is genuinely undecided until the time turns up.

The Sun enters Libra on 23 September 2027 at 06:02 UTC, which is 2:02 am on 23 September in US Eastern time, and hands over to Scorpio on 23 October at 15:33 UTC. That makes 2027 one of only 2 years between 2021 and 2030 with a 23 September Libra start on the US East Coast.

Venus, the sign's ruler, arrives first. It enters Libra on 14 September (UTC), so the 2027 equinox opens with Venus already in her own house. Mars came in earlier, on 15 July, and spends most of the summer in the sign of its detriment. Mercury makes three crossings: in on 3 September, out to Scorpio, back into Libra on 16 October while retrograde, then direct on 28 October at 19°19′ Libra, the Sun degree of people born around 12 October. The Libra new Moon falls on 30 September at 6°43′ (02:36 UTC).

The slower story is on the far side of the zodiac. Saturn moved into Aries, the sign of its fall and the opposite of its Libra exaltation, on 14 February 2026 and stays until 13 April 2028. In 2027 it turns retrograde on 9 August at 27°53′ Aries and direct on 24 December at 21°01′, which keeps it opposite the Suns of Libras born from about 14 to 21 October for the second half of the year. Neptune entered Aries for its long stay on 26 January 2026 and will oppose each part of Libra in turn:

The Libra 2027 horoscope sets out the whole year by date, and the Libra horoscope covers this week.

The slow planets reach Libra once in a generation or less, and Libra Suns born during those stays have the sign twice over. Ingress dates are DE442, in UTC.

Saturn's visits are the ones the tradition would single out, since this is its exaltation. A Libra born between 21 September 1980 and late 1982, or between 21 July 2010 and October 2012, has the Sun and an exalted Saturn in one sign. Pluto stayed from 30 July 1972 to 5 November 1983, so every Libra born from 1972 to 1983 has Pluto in Libra too.

The busiest year was 1981. Jupiter was in Libra from 27 October 1980 to 27 November 1981, so Libras born in 1981 had the Sun, Jupiter, Saturn and Pluto in the sign together, four bodies before Mercury and Venus are counted. The stellium guide explains how to read a cluster like that through the house it falls in. Jupiter just missed the 1980 Libras: that stay began a few days after Scorpio season did.

Ten degrees of the sign each, which is about ten days of the calendar. The dates are typical ones and move by a day with the year.

The Chaldean faces give Libra the Moon, Saturn and Jupiter. The modern scheme, which hands each decan to a sign of the same element, gives Libra, Aquarius and Gemini, and through them Venus, Saturn (Uranus for modern readers) and Mercury. The two systems rarely agree, but both give the middle decan, about 3 to 12 October, to Saturn: a Saturn decan inside Saturn's exaltation.

Aries is the opposite sign, and for Libra the opposition mirrors every dignity: the Sun exalted there and fallen here, Saturn fallen there and exalted here, Mars at home there and in detriment here. Aries and Libra is the textbook attraction of opposites, with a standing disagreement about who decides. Gemini and Aquarius share the air triangle and sit a trine away, the easiest of the classical aspects (Gemini and Libra, Libra and Aquarius). Taurus shares Venus as ruler but lies 150° off, which the tradition counts as aversion.

The neighbours are in aversion too, being 30° apart. Virgo and Libra is one of the most searched pairings on this site, and the fair answer is that two Sun signs decide very little; Libra and Scorpio is the other neighbour pairing. Comparing two whole charts is what synastry is for. All twelve signs, with the same year-by-year tables, are on the zodiac signs by date page.