♀ Venus Combustion 2026

Venus is the brightest planet in the sky, and its combustions are the gaps between its appearances. At an inferior conjunction Venus slides backward past the Sun, emerges on the Sun's western side and rises before dawn as the morning star. At a superior conjunction it passes behind the Sun moving forward and comes out on the eastern side, as the evening star. In these years the two kinds alternate every 287 to 296 days, which gives one or two Venus cazimis in a calendar year.

Venus signifies affection, pleasure, art, ornament and the money spent on them, and in electional astrology she is the planet consulted for marriages and alliances. Electional astrologers traditionally avoid setting a wedding or a partnership while Venus is combust, on the reasoning that she cannot deliver what she promises while burned. The cazimi is the exception: Venus in the heart of the Sun is counted strong.

Venus's combust days in 2026 come from a long superior combustion from December 2, 2025 to February 11, 2026 and a short inferior combustion from October 18 to October 29, 2026. The cards below time each one, give the hours Venus spends within 17′ of the Sun, and say how far north or south of the Sun it passes.

Five Venus cycles, from one inferior conjunction to the fifth after it, take 7.98 years in this data, so the conjunctions repeat on an eight-year rhythm, ten to each eight years, five of each kind. In the data, each cazimi that has a partner eight years later is matched by one 2 to 3 days earlier in the calendar and 2.1° to 2.6° earlier in the zodiac. The inferior conjunction of March 23, 2025, at 2°39′ Aries, returns on March 20, 2033, at 0°21′ Aries.

Halfway through, the kind flips. About four years after an inferior conjunction a superior one falls at nearly the same date and degree, and the other way round: March 23, 2025 (inferior, 2°39′ Aries) is answered on March 23, 2029 (superior, 3°28′ Aries).

For anyone born near a Venus conjunction, the same kind of conjunction comes back close to their birthday every eight years, a few days earlier each time.

Each of the 14 periods, filed under the year of its cazimi. Two of the seven long superior ones start in one year and end in the next; the path column shows Venus moving forward through as many as four signs during one of them, against a few degrees backward in an inferior one.

An inferior combustion of Venus lasts 10 days, a superior one 61 to 70. At the inferior conjunction Venus is retrograde and only 0.27 to 0.29 AU from Earth, so it sweeps backward past the Sun at 1.58° to 1.63° a day. At the superior conjunction it is 1.71 to 1.74 AU away on the far side and moves forward only 0.24° to 0.28° a day faster than the Sun, so crossing the same 17° takes about 6.5 times as long.

The superior passes differ among themselves by 9 days. Venus's own daily motion at those cazimis barely changes, 1.230° to 1.258°, but the Sun's runs from 0.958° to 1.019°, fastest in early January when Earth is nearest the Sun. The faster the Sun, the slower Venus pulls away from it, and in every case the order holds: the longest passes (January 6, 2026 and January 4, 2034) have the smallest gap in speed, the shortest ones (August 12, 2027 and August 9, 2035) the largest.

Every Venus retrograde carries an inferior conjunction near its middle. Venus turns retrograde, meets the Sun 21 days later and turns direct 20 to 22 days after that. All seven inferior combustions in these years lie wholly inside their retrograde, so Venus is combust only in the middle ten days or so of a retrograde, never at its start or end.

The superior conjunction sits at the far point of the cycle. Venus is moving direct, and its next retrograde begins 268 to 273 days later.

Astrologers who read Venus retrograde as a review of relationships and values treat those combust middle days as the most inward part of it: attachments are reconsidered in private rather than announced or ended in public.

Venus is combust on 14% of the days from 2025 to 2035, mostly during the long superior passes, against 27% for Mercury, so a natal combust Venus is the less common of the two. When it occurs, the traditional reading is that pleasure and affection serve the person's will and reputation: taste is personal and firm, and others may find it hard to please. The Sun's sign and house describe what that taste is attached to.

A natal Venus cazimi is read the other way: the Sun strengthens Venus, and charm, art or diplomacy become part of how the person is known. Births under the long superior cazimi windows are more likely than births under the short inferior ones, simply because the window lasts days instead of hours.

Your chart shows which applies: in the birth chart calculator, compare the Sun and Venus degrees.

The total swings widely, from 12 days in 2028 to 78 in 2030, depending on whether a superior pass falls inside the year or straddles New Year. 2026, 2030 and 2034 have two Venus cazimis; every other year has one.

Every moment here was computed from precise astronomical positions (geocentric, apparent, tropical zodiac) and recomputed independently before publishing. Combust means Venus's longitude is within 8°30′ of the Sun's, under the beams within 17°, cazimi within 17′; latitude is ignored for those orbs, as is usual, and reported separately as the distance from the Sun's center.

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