Lunar return calculator: your chart for the month ahead
A lunar return is the moment the Moon is back at its exact birth degree, once every 27 days 7 hours; its chart describes the month ahead.
Finding the minute of your lunar return
The Moon takes 27 days 7 hours 43 minutes on average to circle the zodiac and come back to where it stood when you were born: that instant is your lunar return. The calculator times it to the minute for the month you choose, using our birth chart’s ephemeris, and casts the chart with Placidus houses. Every calendar month, February included, outlasts that circuit, so each return lands about three days earlier in the month than the last and never keeps a fixed date.
Example: born 14 March 1988 at 22:15 in New York, natal Moon 13°34′ Aquarius. The Moon is back on that degree on Tuesday 20 October 2026 at 00:40 New York time. For New York, the Ascendant is 8°40′ Leo and the Moon falls in the 7th house, so feelings that month lean toward partners. The Moon’s tightest aspect is an opposition to Mars at 12°28′ Leo in the 1st house, orb 1°05′. The next return comes on 16 November 2026 at 07:46, after the switch to standard time.
If you don’t know your birth time, your natal Moon could lie anywhere in the 12–15° it crossed that day, about 6.5° either way, so each return spreads over a window roughly a day wide. You then see that window’s dates and the sign your Moon returns to, plus one line on why there is no hour, Ascendant or houses: any of them would be a guess.
Your location that month sets the Ascendant and the houses, which depend on the local horizon; a few time zones away, the Ascendant can shift by a sign or more. The return happens at one instant everywhere and the Moon keeps its sign, so another city only changes the hour on the clock. By default, the chart is cast for your birth city.
A solar return is read for a year and names its big themes. A lunar return chart holds only until the Moon comes back: it describes the emotional weather of those four weeks, what you need and where your attention settles.
What people ask about lunar returns
What is a lunar return chart?
It shows where the planets stand at the moment your Moon completes a full circuit of the zodiac and reaches its natal degree again, which happens roughly every four weeks. Astrologers read it for the stretch until the next return, above all for moods, needs and where your emotional energy goes. Apart from the Moon itself, nothing in it matches your birth chart: the Ascendant, the houses and the other planets are new each time.
When is my lunar return?
It falls on the day the Moon passes your natal degree, a date that changes from month to month; enter your birth details above to get that day and minute for any month. Most months contain one return and some contain two, in which case both appear in the result. The date of the following return is shown as well, so you know it in advance.
How often does a lunar return happen?
Once every 27.3 days on average, which makes 13 lunar returns in most calendar years and 14 in about one year out of three. The gap between two returns is not fixed, because the Moon speeds up and slows down along its orbit, and a single interval can differ from the average by up to about four hours. That is why each return is worked out from the ephemeris rather than by adding days to the last one.
What does a lunar return chart tell you?
It tells you where your emotional attention is likely to go until the Moon returns again, and in what spirit you meet those weeks. Read the Moon’s house first, the Ascendant’s sign second and the Moon’s two or three tightest aspects third: together they show where your feelings go, the tone of the month and what pulls on your mood. These are leanings for the coming weeks, not fixed events.
Do I need my birth time for a lunar return?
Yes, for the exact minute, the Ascendant and the houses; without it the result narrows the return down to a day or two and gives your Moon’s sign. The time does not need to be perfect: an error of half an hour moves the return by about half an hour and the Ascendant by several degrees. If you only know roughly when you were born, treat the houses as approximate.
Is this lunar return calculator free?
Yes, and there is no sign-up: the dates, the chart wheel and all the readings are open to everyone. What you type into the form is used for the calculation, and we do not keep it. You can switch to next month, or any other, and recalculate straight away.