MercuryThree or four times a year, about three weeks each
- 26 February 2026 to 20 March 202623 days
- 29 June 2026 to 23 July 202624 days
- 24 October 2026 to 13 November 202620 days
Live from the ephemeris
Saturn, Neptune, Pluto are retrograde
A retrograde planet has not reversed. It appears to move backwards from here because of where the Earth is in its own orbit, in the way a slower train appears to slide backwards from the window of a faster one. Here is what is retrograde today, and every turning point this year, calculated rather than copied from a table.
Today, 11 August 2026
- Saturn retrogradeAt 14° of Aries, moving backwards at 0.026° a day.
- Neptune retrogradeAt 4° of Aries, moving backwards at 0.017° a day.
- Pluto retrogradeAt 3° of Aquarius, moving backwards at 0.022° a day.
Moving direct: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Uranus. The Sun and Moon are never retrograde and are not listed.
Every retrograde in 2026
Dates are UTC and accurate to the hour. Each period runs from the day the planet appears to stop and turn back, to the day it stops and resumes. The slow planets are retrograde for months at a time, which is why only Mercury, Venus and Mars are worth watching closely.
VenusEvery 18 months, about 40 days
- 3 October 2026 to 14 November 202642 days
MarsEvery two years or so, for two to two and a half months
No retrograde period falling inside 2026.
JupiterOnce a year, for about four months
- 11 November 2025 to 11 March 2026119 days
SaturnOnce a year, for about four and a half months
- 26 July 2026 to 11 December 2026137 days
UranusOnce a year, for about five months
- 10 September 2026 to 8 February 2027151 days
NeptuneOnce a year, for about five and a half months
- 7 July 2026 to 12 December 2026158 days
PlutoOnce a year, for about five and a half months
- 6 May 2026 to 16 October 2026162 days
What a retrograde does and does not do
Nothing physically changes. The planet keeps orbiting in the same direction at the same speed. What changes is the view: the Earth passes it on the inside, or is passed on the outside, and for a few weeks the planet appears to slide backwards against the fixed stars.
The tradition associates the period with revision, delay and things needing to be done twice. What it does not support is the modern claim that technology fails and contracts should not be signed. There is no evidence for that, and it is not worth organising a life around.
A birth chart with a retrograde planet is a different and more interesting matter. Roughly one person in five was born under a retrograde Mercury, and the tradition reads it as a mind that reaches its conclusions by going back over ground rather than forward across it.
Was anything retrograde when you were born?
The chart marks every retrograde planet at your birth moment, alongside the signs, houses, aspects and declinations. Free, and computed from the same ephemeris as the dates above.