Jupiter Retrograde
2026

Jupiter's Retrograde Dates for 2026

2026 contains parts of two Jupiter retrogrades.

In Cancer, carried over from 2025: from the station at 25.2° Cancer (November 11, 2025, at 16:41 UTC) to the direct station at 15.1° Cancer (March 11, 2026, at 03:30 UTC), 119 days.

In Leo, running on into 2027: from the station at 27.0° Leo (December 13, 2026, at 00:57 UTC) to the direct station at 17.0° Leo (April 13, 2027, at 02:11 UTC), 121 days.

Jupiter's Retrograde Year

Jupiter takes almost twelve years to go around the zodiac, about a year per sign. The Earth laps it every 399 days on average, and each time Jupiter backs up 9.8° to 10.1° over about four months before moving on. Its opposition to the Sun, the night it is brightest, sits in the middle.

Sagittarius and Pisces are Jupiter's signs and Cancer its exaltation. Across the wheel, Gemini and Virgo are its detriment and Capricorn its fall. Jupiter stands for growth and credit, generosity, law and religion, teachers and long journeys. In a retrograde these are read as turning inward: a course of study is reviewed, a loan is restructured, a belief is examined rather than preached.

With Jupiter retrograde 30.8% of the time, nobody plans a life around it. Astrologers watch the stations instead, when Jupiter's position barely changes for about 20 days, holding within 10′ of the station point, and the sign of the retrograde, since that sign's house in a chart is where the review is said to take place.

One Sign Further Each Year

Each Jupiter retrograde begins 29.9° to 36.7° beyond the one before, close to the width of a sign, so the stations walk through the zodiac in order: Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Aquarius, Pisces, Aries and Taurus. The one break in the sign-a-year rhythm comes in 2032, when the station jumps from Sagittarius to Aquarius; Jupiter gets back to Capricorn only as that retrograde backs into it.

The step follows Jupiter's distance from the Sun. It is smallest, 29.9°, between the 2028 and 2029 retrogrades, around aphelion on December 28, 2028, when Jupiter is farthest out and slowest. It is largest, 36.7°, between 2034 and 2035, around perihelion on December 5, 2034.

The Earth needs 395 to 403 days to lap Jupiter, a month or so more than a year, so each retrograde starts 29 to 38 days later in the calendar than the last. Sooner or later the start slips past New Year and a calendar year goes by with no new Jupiter retrograde: in this table, 2027.

Jupiter Retrograde Calendar, 2025–2035

Eleven Jupiter retrogrades from 2025 to 2035, starting with the one already running when 2025 began (it stationed on October 9, 2024). Each lasts between 117 and 123 days (120.2 as a mean), which puts Jupiter in retrograde motion for 30.8% of the period.

Times are the zero-speed moments of Jupiter's longitude in our ephemeris, rounded to the minute. How the shadow is measured is explained on the About page; its dates are UTC.

Opposition: Jupiter at Its Brightest

Opposition falls almost exactly halfway through every Jupiter retrograde: between 49.2% and 50.8% of its length has passed. That night Jupiter rises at sunset, 3.95 to 4.45 AU from the Earth, and shines at magnitude −2.5 to −2.9, brighter than any star in the night sky. The nearest and brightest of these oppositions is on October 2, 2034.

Jupiter's Shadow: About 86 Days Before and 86 After

Natal Jupiter Retrograde

In the 2025–2035 data Jupiter spends 30.8% of its time retrograde, close to one birth in three: in a group of ten people, about three were born with it.

Astrologers read it as faith and generosity that are tested before they are trusted: a person who learns by questioning the teacher, distrusts easy optimism, and often finds that luck comes on the second attempt rather than the first.

Using a Jupiter Retrograde