Born in January or February? How to Find Your Japanese Zodiac Year

Updated October 15, 2026

If you were born in January or early February, your Japanese zodiac animal depends on the day you count as the start of the year. Take 2026, a Horse year that followed a Snake year: a birthday from January 1 to February 3, 2026, is a Horse by the January 1 rule, but a Snake by the Lunar New Year rule and by the Risshun rule, which starts the year at the beginning of spring in the old calendar. From February 4 to February 16, 2026, Risshun gives Horse while Lunar New Year still gives Snake; from February 17 on, all three agree on Horse.

The dividing dates move every year. Risshun falls on February 3, 4 or 5, and Lunar New Year, which begins at a new moon, anywhere from late January to February 20. The table at the end of this article gives both dates for every year from 1950 to 2030. For birthdays from February 20 to December 31, there is nothing to work out: in every year from 1950 to 2030, all three rules give the animal of your birth year.

The same twelve animals are used in China, Korea, Vietnam and other places; in Japan the zodiac is called eto. Each year is also named by two kanji, the Chinese characters used in Japanese writing, and this article explains how to read them. To check your own date, enter it in the free night sky on the day you were born preview, which shows the zodiac year for the date, time and city you enter.

Three ways to start the zodiac year

January 1. This is how the animal is used in everyday life in Japan today: New Year's cards and the zodiac figures sold at the end of the year change animal on January 1. Japan switched from its old calendar, whose months followed the Moon, to the Gregorian calendar in 1873 (National Diet Library, The Japanese Calendar), and the zodiac year now follows the calendar year.

Lunar New Year. In China and many Chinese communities, the animal year usually starts with the Spring Festival, the first day of the traditional Chinese calendar, whose months begin at each new moon. Its date moves between late January and February. The Hong Kong Observatory publishes conversion tables between the Gregorian and the Chinese calendar for every year (Hong Kong Observatory, Gregorian-Lunar Calendar Conversion Table).

Risshun, the start of spring. In the calendar itself, the year's two kanji, and those of each month, change at Risshun (Lichun in Chinese), one of the 24 solar terms that divide the Sun's year into equal steps. Risshun is the moment when the Sun reaches a fixed point on its yearly path across the sky, 315° counted from the March equinox (National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, 24 solar terms, in Japanese). Traditional almanacs count the year from Risshun, and so do the birth-date systems built on them, such as the Chinese Four Pillars (BaZi) and the Japanese Nine Star Ki.

The same birthday under each rule

In 2026, Risshun came on February 4 in Japan time and Lunar New Year on February 17. 2026 is a Horse year, and 2025 was a Snake year, so a birthday early in 2026 can be either:

In 2025 the order was the other way around: Lunar New Year came first, on January 29, and Risshun on February 3. 2024 was a Dragon year.

So "born in January" does not settle the question, and neither does "born in February." You need the year's dates. The table at the end of this article lists them for 1950 to 2030.

Risshun falls on February 3, 4 or 5

Risshun is an astronomical moment, not a fixed calendar day, so its date shifts. From 1950 to 2030 it fell on February 4 in Japan time in 68 years, on February 5 in 10 years and on February 3 in 3 years (2021, 2025 and 2029). UTC, the world's reference clock and the same as Greenwich Mean Time, is nine hours behind Japan. In UTC, the same moments fall on February 3 or 4.

Because it is a moment, Risshun happens at the same instant everywhere. In 2025 it was 11:10 PM on February 3 in Japan time, which was 2:10 PM on February 3 in UTC and 9:10 AM on February 3 in New York.

Take a fictional person born in New York on February 3, 2025:

• Born at 8:00 AM, before Risshun: still the previous year, Wood Dragon (甲辰).
• Born at 10:00 AM, after Risshun: the new year, Wood Snake (乙巳).

That is how the night sky preview works when you enter a birth time: it compares that moment with the moment of Risshun. If you leave the time blank, it compares your date with the date of Risshun in Japan time, so February 3, 2025, with no time, gives Wood Snake.

Lunar New Year moves even more

The first day of the Chinese lunar year is the day of a new moon, so it can move by about a month. From 1950 to 2030 it fell between January 21 and February 20.

Japan's old calendar, used until 1872, follows almost the same rules, but it counts days in Japan time. When a new moon falls just after midnight in Japan, it is still the previous day in China, one hour behind. In 1950–2030 that put the Japanese first day one day later than the Chinese one in seven years: 1954, 1958, 1966, 1988, 1997, 2027 and 2028. The Lunar New Year dates in this article are the Chinese ones.

Reading the two kanji of a zodiac year

Each year has two kanji. The second is one of the twelve branches, which carry the animals. The first is one of the ten stems, which pair the five elements with "elder" and "younger": in the Japanese readings, the endings -e and -to.

The ten stems:

The twelve branches:

The two counters advance together, one step a year, so a pair comes back every 60 years: 10 and 12 first line up again after 60. That is why the cycle is called the sixty-year cycle (National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Koyomi Wiki: Eto, in Japanese). 1984 began a new cycle with 甲子 (Kinoe-Ne, Wood Rat). For any year, subtract 4: the remainder after dividing by 10 gives the stem, counting 甲 as 0, and the remainder after dividing by 12 gives the branch, counting 子 as 0.

For 2026: 2026 − 4 = 2022. 2022 divided by 10 leaves 2, which is 丙 (Hinoe, Fire); 2022 divided by 12 leaves 6, which is 午 (Uma, Horse). So 2026 is 丙午, Hinoe-Uma, the Fire Horse, and so was 1966, 60 years earlier.

In Japan the twelfth animal is the wild boar; Chinese lists usually give the pig for the same branch, 亥. The eighth, 未, appears in English as goat, sheep or ram.

Why our night sky print uses Risshun

The night sky on the day you were born print shows the zodiac year in kanji next to the day's microseason from Japan's traditional calendar of 72 seasons. Both come from the same calendar, and in that calendar the year and the first microseason both begin at Risshun. Using Risshun for the year keeps the two consistent: someone born on January 20 gets the previous year's kanji together with a midwinter microseason, as in the almanac. How the 72 microseasons are counted, and the full list: Japan's 72 microseasons. The article Are custom star maps accurate? explains what the star map on the print needs in order to show the real sky, and how to check it yourself. The same calendar values appear on maps of anniversaries and wedding dates; see what to put on an anniversary star map.

If you were born between January 1 and Risshun, the print will show the previous year's kanji, because in the old calendar the new year has not begun yet. If you think of your animal by the January 1 rule or by Lunar New Year, the table below shows which years differ.

Risshun and Lunar New Year, 1950–2030

The zodiac year shown starts at Risshun under the calendar rule, at Lunar New Year under the Chinese rule and on January 1 under the everyday Japanese rule. Times are rounded to the minute.

About this article

The Risshun moments are calculated from the Sun's position with Swiss Ephemeris, a widely used library for computing the positions of the Sun, Moon and planets, and match the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan's published almanac tables to the minute for every year in the table. The Lunar New Year dates come from our calendar engine's new moons, converted to China's time zone, and match the Hong Kong Observatory's conversion tables for every year in the table. The people in the examples are fictional.

The English text of this article was written with AI assistance. The dates, times and zodiac years in the examples and the table are calculated by our software, not generated by AI.