Venus Retrograde 2026 and Your Solar Return: October and November Birthdays

Venus stations retrograde on 3 October 2026 at 8°29′ Scorpio and turns direct on 14 November at 22°52′ Libra, so every birthday from 3 October to 13 November gets a solar return with Venus moving backwards. For most of those birthdays it is weather: a year that reviews love, money and what you value, shared with six weeks of other people. It becomes your story when Venus already runs part of your year, above all when annual profections make her your Lord of the Year. That you can check.

Two rules that cannot both be right

If your birthday falls between 25 October and 2 November 2026, three things are true of Venus in your solar return at once. She is retrograde. She is hidden by the Sun, too close to it to be seen. And she is in Libra, her own sign.

Two old rules read that combination in opposite ways. Abu Ma’shar, the ninth-century Persian astrologer, calls retrograde motion the worst weakness Venus can have, above all when the Sun hides her. The older Hellenistic tradition has a rule known as the chariot: a planet hidden by the Sun in its own sign is not harmed by it. The planet rides in its chariot and is carried along. So for those nine birthdays, one rule says Venus starts your year at her lowest and the other says she is protected.

Venus retrograde in your solar return: find your band

A solar return is the chart for the moment the Sun returns to its birth position; astrologers read it as the chart of the coming year.

Times below are UTC and Amsterdam. The clocks go back on 25 October at 03:00, so later rows switch from CEST to CET. US sources often list the direct station as 13 November because 14 November 00:27 UTC is still the evening of the 13th in Eastern time. Positions were checked against Skyfield with JPL DE440s, Astro-Seek and Cafe Astrology.

The shadow starts when Venus first crosses 22°52′ Libra, the degree she will later station on, and ends when she finally passes 8°29′ Scorpio again in direct motion. The retrograde itself is the middle of that loop.

Sun at 12:00 UT on each birthday stands in for the return moment; band edges shift by about a day with birth year and time. Neither band is a verdict on anyone’s love life. It names the sky your year starts under.

When annual profections make Venus your Lord of the Year — a Taurus or Libra year, counted from your rising sign — this retrograde is no longer background. Our settled reading is delay, not denial: what Venus promises still arrives, later or in a revised form. For birthdays from 3 October to 13 November the 14 November station falls inside the first six weeks of the year, and that is the likely turning point. The free annual profections calculator finds your Lord of the Year.

Return angles move with where you spend your birthday. PathFinder Charts supports solar return relocation, so the same sky can sit on different houses depending on the city.

Venus repeats a same-sign retrograde every eight years. Compare this return with the same birthday in 2018 (station retrograde 5 October at 10°50′ Scorpio, direct 16 November at 25°15′ Libra) and 2010 (8 October at 13°14′ Scorpio, 18 November at 27°39′ Libra). PathFinder Charts computes the 8- and 16-year echoes.

The six checks later in this post show whether Venus already runs part of your year. Count the switches that are on.

Which band is yours, and is Venus already running a part of your year?

What we are arguing about

A solar return is the chart for the moment the Sun comes back to the exact degree it held when you were born. Astrologers read it as the chart of the year that starts on your birthday. More in Solar return charts explained.

Venus is retrograde from 3 October to 14 November 2026, so every birthday from 3 October to 13 November gets a solar return with Venus retrograde. That raises a broader question: when does a retrograde Venus in your return say something about you, and when is it just the sky everyone shares?

Below, we mark what is settled, what rests on a single author, and what is our own reasoning.

Three ways to read Venus walking backwards

Venus is love, money, pleasure and what you value. Seen from the Earth, a retrograde planet seems to walk backwards through the zodiac, and astrologers read that in three ways.

The traditional reading says a retrograde planet is weakened, so its matters arrive late or come back. The modern reading says the planet turns inward and grows more intense; Joanne Wickenburg calls retrograde planets stronger, more “in your face”. The mythic reading belongs to Demetra George alone. She reads the retrograde as a descent and return, like the goddess Inanna going down into the underworld. The 2026 sky fits her picture: on 24 October at 03:44 UT, at 0°45′ Scorpio, Venus passes between the Earth and the Sun and turns from evening star into morning star.

There is a catch. Traditional doctrine on a planet’s phase tends to favour Venus as the evening star, which she is from 3 to 24 October, and reads the morning star that follows as more assertive. So the “rebirth” changes her tone, and that change isn’t automatically good news.

Every modern source agrees on one point: a retrograde Venus in the return makes the year a review of love, relationships, values and money. What a bond or a choice is really like counts for more than how it looks from outside, and repairing what exists works better than rushing into something new.

Two authors narrow this further. Mary Fortier Shea holds that only the retrogrades of Mercury, Venus and Mars are worth reading in a solar return at all. Joanne Wickenburg adds three things: the house Venus falls in shows which part of your life is being re-valued, the values you hold on your birthday may have shifted by year end, and people from the past come back.

The collision, looked at closely

From 14 October to 2 November Venus is within 15° of the Sun, the line we use for “under the beams” (some astrologers use 17°). From roughly 19 to 28 October she is within 8°30′, which is called combust. Either way she cannot be seen.

Abu Ma’shar’s line, in Benjamin Dykes’s translation, covers the whole stretch from 14 October to 2 November. In 2011 the modern astrologer Jo Tracey agreed that combustion is the greatest affliction a time lord can carry in a solar return.

The chariot changes the picture on 25 October, when Venus moves back into Libra. Every Hellenistic source accepts the rule, and Antiochus and Porphyry both state it. Before that date, in Scorpio, she is in detriment, opposite her own Taurus. She has one thing in her favour there. Dorotheus makes her the day ruler of the water signs, Scorpio among them, so we think the chariot partly applies for day births. For night births between 14 and 24 October, nothing softens Abu Ma’shar’s reading. That combination is our own; no source puts the two ideas together.

We also take a third view. In plain geometry a combust planet sits on the Sun, and in a solar return the Sun sits on your natal Sun’s degree, which puts Venus at the centre of the chart. Abu Ma’shar’s own checklist reads “hidden in the rays” as a sign of hidden things. Taken together, both rules can hold: Venus is central to the year, but her themes stay out of sight at first and come into view once she clears the glare around 3 November. Again, this link is ours alone.

What tends to come back

Three separate ideas point at the past.

The first is what we call retrograde resonance. If you were born with Venus retrograde, a Venus retrograde in your return tends to read as something from the past coming back. This is our own reading, and the evidence for Venus in particular is thin.

The second comes from Nick Dagan Best: Venus retrograde crossing your Ascendant marks a new chapter. In 2026 the backward loop runs from 22°52′ Libra to 8°29′ Scorpio, and any natal point in that stretch is crossed three times: forward, back, and forward again.

The third is the eight-year cycle, which Whitney Hill and Alison Price both use. Venus makes five retrogrades in eight years, so a retrograde in the same signs comes round every eight years. The last two ran from 5 October 2018 (10°50′ Scorpio) to 16 November (25°15′ Libra), and from 8 October 2010 (13°14′ Scorpio) to 18 November (27°39′ Libra). Put your 2018 and 2010 solar returns next to this one. Whatever was on the table in those years is a good first place to look.

Does this apply to you?

For most people a retrograde Venus is background, shared with six weeks of birthdays. It turns personal when Venus already holds a job in your chart or your year. Every source accepts the principle that a planet running one of your timing systems is switched on, and its condition then counts for more. Austin Coppock adds that a retrograde hits harder when the planet is prominent at birth.

First the dates, in UT and Amsterdam time. The clocks go back on 25 October at 03:00.

If your birthday falls right at a station, roughly 1 to 5 October or 12 to 16 November, Venus stands almost still in your return. Seven Stars Astrology and Georgia Stathis both treat a station as the most concentrated point, and Stathis says to check whether your return Venus turns during the year. In 2026 she turns direct on 14 November, within six weeks of every birthday in the window.

Six checks

Each check is a switch, either on or off.

1. Venus is your Lord of the Year. In annual profections, each year of life activates one sign, counted from your rising sign, and that sign’s ruler runs your year. In a Taurus or Libra year Venus is your Lord of the Year, and she starts it retrograde. This is the strongest switch, and the two stations become the year’s turning points. Our settled reading is delay, not denial: what Venus promises still arrives, later or in a revised form. Chris Brennan says this about a Lord of the Year that is retrograde at birth. Carrying it over to the solar return is our own step, and no modern author has written about a retrograde Venus as Lord of the Year in the return itself. The free annual profections calculator finds your Lord of the Year.
2. You are in a Venus firdaria. Firdaria is a medieval system that gives each planet a fixed run of years. Venus gets eight: from your 10th birthday to your 18th if you were born by day, with the Sun above the horizon; from your 49th to your 57th if you were born at night, or from your 54th to your 62nd in another medieval ordering. We found nothing written on a retrograde Venus inside a Venus firdaria.
3. Zodiacal releasing has you in a Taurus or Libra period. Zodiacal releasing divides a life into chapters, each run by a sign. A Taurus or Libra chapter lasts eight years, with Venus in charge of the background. Here too, no one has written about a retrograde chapter ruler in the return.
4. Venus is dominant in your birth chart. That means Venus on an angle, within about 3° of your Sun, Moon, Ascendant or Midheaven, or ruling your rising or Sun sign, as she does for every Taurus or Libra. Libra Suns born about 3 to 22 October have this switch built in, because Venus rules their Sun and is retrograde in their return. Venus is the benefic of the night, so she acts more kindly in a night chart. Every source agrees that sect changes how gently she acts. It doesn’t change how loudly.
5. Venus is on an angle, or on the Sun, Moon, Ascendant or Midheaven, in the return. Then she is loud whichever way she moves. The usual orb is about 3°. Birthdays from roughly 19 to 28 October are the disputed case. Venus is combust then, and the return Sun always sits on your natal Sun’s degree, so by our reading a combust Venus counts as Venus on the Sun. By a strict 3° rule, only birthdays around 22 to 25 October qualify. The angles depend on where you spend your birthday.
6. Your progressed Venus is stationing. Secondary progressions count each day after birth as a year of life, so if you were born N days before a Venus station, your progressed Venus turns at about age N.

   These groups have a progressed Venus standing still this year:

   • Born around 25 August or around 6 October 1970: 55 or 56 now.
   • Born around 14 April or around 27 May 1988: 38 this year.
   • Born around 3 July or around 15 August 1999: 27 this year.
   • Born around 8 July or around 20 August 2007: 19 this year.

   A progressed planet near its station barely moves for years, so this is a long background, and your birth time shifts the edges a little. Erin Sullivan reads progressed Venus turning retrograde as a withdrawal from a lifelong attraction, in which borrowed values fall away. We found nothing on a progressed station falling in the same year as a retrograde Venus in the return.

Count your switches

• 0: background colour.
• 1: noticeable. Venus matters get a second look.
• 2: a Venus year.
• 3 or more, including a time lord (the Lord of the Year, a firdaria or a releasing period): Venus is the story of the year.

The scale is our own shorthand.

A worked example

Take a fictional woman: Libra rising, born at night, turning 36 on 20 October 2026.

• At 36 the profection comes back to her 1st house, Libra. Venus is her Lord of the Year, which is switch one and a time lord.
• Venus rules her Ascendant, and her Sun is in Libra too. Switch two.
• Her night Venus firdaria starts at 49 or 54, so not yet.
• In her return Venus is retrograde in Scorpio and combust, about 6.8° from the Sun. That is too wide for the strict 3° rule. By our reading of combust as sitting on the Sun, it is switch three.

That gives her two switches for certain, three by our reading, and a time lord either way. We read it as delay, not denial: something in love or money comes back to be settled properly this time. Her Lord of the Year starts the year hidden, clears the glare around 3 November and turns direct on 14 November, which is the likely turning point.

What PathFinder checks: it finds your Lord of the Year, casts your return for wherever you spend your birthday, works out your firdaria period, runs zodiacal releasing, flags any progressed planet stationing this year and scores how much of your birth chart Venus runs. Your yearly reading covers all six checks.

Our verdict

For birthdays from 14 to 24 October, in the Scorpio stretch, the harsher medieval reading fits better. Venus is retrograde, hidden and in her detriment, and for night births nothing in the tradition softens that. From 25 October to 2 November, back in Libra, the chariot fits: she is hidden, but at home and carried. Neither reading is a verdict on anyone’s love life, and for most people neither matters unless a switch is on. Without one, this retrograde is just weather.

How many switches are on in your chart, and what did Venus bring back the last time she turned in this part of the sky?

Sources. Positions and times: Swiss Ephemeris via pyswisseph, tropical, geocentric, checked to the arcminute and the minute. The traditional reading follows Abu Ma’shar in Benjamin Dykes’s translations, and the chariot rule follows Antiochus, Porphyry and Dorotheus. The modern reading follows Mary Fortier Shea, Joanne Wickenburg, Georgia Stathis, Jo Tracey and Seven Stars Astrology. The mythic reading follows Demetra George, progressed Venus follows Erin Sullivan, and the eight-year cycle follows Whitney Hill and Alison Price. Profections and time lords follow Chris Brennan, Austin Coppock and Nick Dagan Best on The Astrology Podcast. The worked example is fictional. For self-reflection and educational purposes.