September zodiac signs: Virgo and Libra

This table settles any September birthday in US Eastern time across the 80 years from 1951 to 2030. Through 21 September it is always Virgo; from 24 September it is always Libra. The equinox week leaves two dates open, 22 and 23 September, and those rows give the odds. The decan column shows which 10° third of the sign the Sun is in and its Chaldean face ruler, a finer division that leaves the sign itself unchanged.

The UK agrees on every date but leans later on the equinox itself. Sydney sometimes runs a day later again: there Libra had not begun by midnight at the start of 24 September in 9 of the 80 years, so the first certain Libra date is 25 September.

The first instant of Libra and the September equinox are one event: the moment the Sun crosses the celestial equator heading south, which tropical astrology defines as 0° Libra. Ptolemy calls Libra an equinoctial sign, 'the one which begins with the autumnal equinox' (Tetrabiblos I.11), and says such signs are named from what happens at their start, when night and day come out even. Asking when Libra starts and asking when autumn starts are the same question.

Over the 80 years from 1951 to 2030, in US Eastern time, that instant fell on 22 September in 40 years and on 23 September in exactly 40. No other sign change in the year splits so evenly between two dates in US time over that span; April and May come close without matching it.

An even total hides a one-way trend. The 23rd owned the first half of the run and the 22nd the second. In the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s the equinox came on 23 September in 7, 7 and 7 years of each decade. From 2000 the 22nd took over, with 22 of the 31 years, and in the 10 years from 2021 it has 8. The halves cancel to a dead heat. A US calendar that still prints 'first day of autumn, 23 September' is quoting the twentieth century; the reason, the calendar's leap-day rhythm, is worked through on the May zodiac page.

Where you stand changes the date. In US Pacific time the equinox fell on 22 September in 51 of 80 years and in every one of the ten from 2021 (10). London, five hours ahead of New York in September, had it on the 23rd in 58 years. Sydney had it on 23 September in 68 years and as late as the 24th in 9.

In Sydney the same instant is the spring equinox, and that is where the zodiac and the weather part company. Tropical signs are tied to the equinoxes, not to the local season, so a Libra born on a warm September evening in Sydney has the same sign as one born on a cool New York morning. Nothing flips south of the equator. Pages that tell Australian readers their signs run six months out of step describe a convention that hardly any working astrologer uses.

Ptolemy's equal day and night is close rather than exact. At temperate latitudes the day is still a little longer than the night on the equinox itself, because sunrise and sunset are timed from the top edge of the Sun's disc and the atmosphere bends its light above the horizon. The equinox is defined by the Sun's position on the equator, not by the length of the day, and so is Libra.

Use this table for a 22 or 23 September birthday: find the year, read the zone, and compare the time with the birth time. Earlier than the equinox means Virgo.

The extremes in US Eastern time are 22 September, 7:45 am in 2028 and 23 September, 4:37 pm in 1951. Leap years arrive earliest and the following three later each time: 22 September, 8:44 am in 2024, then 22 September, 2:19 pm, 22 September, 8:05 pm and 23 September, 2:02 am, before 22 September, 7:45 am in 2028 starts the cycle again. The 2027 equinox is the last 23 September start in the US Eastern column.

In the US Social Security birth counts for 2000 to 2014, which sit behind the Shymea rarity study, September ranks 1st of the twelve months for births. An average September date saw 11,999 births a year, +5.7% compared with an ordinary day. The month also holds the single busiest date in the calendar: 12 September, ranked 1st of 366 with 12,735 births on average, +12.2% against the all-year mean of 11,350.

The rest of the leading dates cluster around it. 19 September ranked 2nd and 20 September 3rd; 10 September was 5th, 18 September 7th, 26 September 9th and 17 September 10th.

September is not busy from its first day, though. 1, 2 and 3 September all came in below an average date (−3.7%, −2.6% and −1.7%), and 1 September was the quietest of the month at 305th. Labor Day always falls between 1 and 7 September, and scheduled deliveries tend to avoid holidays, which is a plausible reason; the counts cannot prove it. 11 September also sits well under its neighbours, 93rd against 5th the day before and 1st the day after. The data records that dip and does not explain it.

By sign, the September peak falls mostly on Virgo. The always-Virgo dates averaged 12,009 births and the always-Libra dates 11,968, and over the whole year Virgo was the 2nd most common US sign at 8.94%. Libra came 5th at 8.52%; it rose to 4th in New York City in 2024 and stood 5th in England and Wales in 2025. The study keeps the seasonal birth peak apart from the astronomical effect, which here is modest: the Sun spends 30.90 days in Virgo and 30.39 in Libra.

Over the whole run, half and half. US Eastern time kept Virgo for all of 22 September in 40 years and changed to Libra during the day in 40. Recent births lean towards the change: Libra arrived on 22 September in 8 of the 10 years from 2021, and in Los Angeles in all 10. A 22 September birthday therefore turns on the hour. The zodiac sign calculator reads the date, time and birthplace zone and returns the sign; the equinox table above does the same by eye.

23 September is the mirror image. It was Libra all day in 40 of 80 years and changed during the day in 40. Since 2021 it has been Libra from midnight in 8 years; the exceptions are 2023 and 2027, with the equinox at 23 September, 2:50 am and 23 September, 2:02 am, when a baby born before breakfast on the 23rd was a Virgo. In the UK the change happened during 23 September in 58 of 80 years, so a British birth on that date needs its time in most years. 24 September is Libra in every US and UK year; only Sydney has seen Virgo last into it, in 9 years.

Virgo closes the summer, which is why Ptolemy lists it among the bicorporeal signs (I.11), the four that sit between one season and the next. The tradition is unkind to Venus here: in the Tetrabiblos she 'has her exaltation in Pisces and her depression in Virgo' (I.19). Yet the Chaldean faces hand Virgo's middle decan, from 1 to 3 September, to Venus. An early-September Virgo has the Sun in a decan ruled by the planet the sign treats worst, which is one way astrologers account for the soft-hearted streak under the lists. From 12 or 13 September the face passes to Mercury, and a mid-September Virgo has Mercury as sign ruler, exaltation and face at once.

In ordinary life: the bookkeeper who reconciles the account to the penny on a Friday afternoon because leaving it would spoil the weekend; the teacher whose marking is late because every comment is specific; the friend who answers 'how are you' with an accurate report. None of it is prophecy. It does not mean joyless or superior, either. Virgo is the sign of useful attention, and the attention is often aimed at other people's problems rather than at their faults.

Every Virgo born from 1962 to 1968 has Uranus and Pluto in Virgo with the Sun. Uranus held the sign from 10 August 1962 to 28 September 1968, and Pluto from 10 June 1958 to 5 October 1971; the two met there in the mid-1960s. For the sign's August start and its year-by-year times, see the Virgo page, with its start times.

Libra is one of Venus's two houses (I.17), but the equinox sign carries a pair of dignities that describe it better than the scales do. Saturn takes 'Libra as his exaltation and Aries as his depression', and the Sun gets 'Libra as his depression' (I.19). So the Sun enters its fall at the moment northern days begin to shorten, and the planet of rules, contracts and time is at its strongest in the same sign.

Every September Libra is a first-decan Libra, and the Chaldean order gives that decan to the Moon. The second decan, from 2 or 3 October, belongs to Saturn, which is why astrologers who use faces treat early-October Libras as the drier, more legal-minded end of the sign and the September ones as the more responsive.

What a September Libra looks like at work and at home: the colleague who chairs the meeting so that it actually reaches a decision; the friend who will not take sides in a break-up and keeps both friendships; the person who rewrites a group message three times so that nobody can misread it. It does not mean indecisive by nature. Libra weighs, weighing takes time, and a Libra with a strong Saturn is often the one who ends the argument.

Saturn was in Libra for the late-September Libras of 1980, 1981 and 1982 (from 21 September 1980 to 29 November 1982) and again for those of 2010, 2011 and 2012 (from 21 July 2010 to 5 October 2012). It next enters Libra on 5 September 2039. The October half of the sign is on Libra dates and the equinox start.

The 2027 equinox comes at 23 September, 06:02 UTC. That is 23 September, 2:02 am in New York but 22 September, 11:02 pm in Los Angeles, and 23 September, 7:02 am in London. A child born at 11:30 pm on 22 September 2027 in California is a Libra; a New York birth at 11:30 pm the same evening, two and a half hours before the equinox there, is a Virgo.

Venus enters Libra on 13 September, 8:25 pm, so the mid-September Virgos of 2027 have Venus in the next sign along, out of the sign of her depression. Uranus turns retrograde at 9°57′ Gemini on 15 September, 5:09 am. The New Moon of 29 September, 10:36 pm falls at 6°43′ Libra, on the Sun of Libras born around 29 September. The Virgo 2027 horoscope and Libra 2027 horoscope follow the rest of the year.

August holds Leo and Virgo, the two most common US signs, and the 2027 total eclipse in Leo: see August zodiac signs. October moves from Libra to Scorpio on 23 October in most years: see October zodiac signs. Every month is listed on the zodiac signs by date page.