Pisces, the Last Sign of the Zodiac

The Sign That Absorbs the Room

Pisces walks into your conversation and somehow absorbs the feelings of everyone in the room without meaning to. They are the artist, the daydreamer, the one staring out of the window during the meeting because they are somewhere else entirely, and where they are is probably more interesting than the meeting.

The empathy is real and frequently overwhelming. A Pisces in a tense room will physically feel the tension, even if nobody has said anything. That makes the sign an extraordinary friend, carer and artist, and a person who badly needs time alone to find out which feelings were its own.

Usual dates

February 19 – March 20 (full days)

Sun next enters

February 18, 2027 at 21:33 UTC

Sun leaves

March 20, 2027 at 20:25 UTC

Symbol

The Fish

Element · modality

Water · Mutable

Polarity

Nocturnal (feminine)

Ruler

Jupiter (traditional), Neptune (modern)

Exaltation

Venus at 27°

Detriment

Mercury

Fall

Mercury

Triplicity rulers

Venus by day, Mars by night, Moon participating

Opposite sign

Virgo

Body (melothesia)

Feet and lymphatic system

Season

Closes winter

The Last Sign Carries the Others

Pisces is the twelfth sign, and there is an old idea that it carries traces of every sign that came before it. That might explain why Pisceans seem to understand experiences they have not personally had. The boundary between inner and outer world is thin, sometimes too thin.

As a mutable water sign at the end of winter, Pisces is endlessly adaptable. That can slide into shapelessness: becoming whoever the other person needs, at the cost of knowing who you actually are. Neptune, its modern ruler, is the planet of dissolving boundaries, and Jupiter, its traditional ruler, is the planet of faith. Pisces holds both: a willingness to merge and a belief that something larger is worth merging with.

The Equinox Point Lies in Pisces

For most of tropical Pisces season the Sun is still in front of the constellation Aquarius. It reaches the stars of the Fishes around March 13 and stays among them until mid-April, well into tropical Aries.

The March equinox point itself, 0° of tropical Aries, currently lies in the constellation Pisces, which is the astronomical basis of the Age of Pisces. On the modern IAU boundaries it does not cross into Aquarius for several more centuries.

The next tropical Pisces season runs Feb 18, 2027 to Mar 20, 2027. Over those days the Sun stands in front of Aquarius (Feb 18–Mar 12) and Pisces (Mar 13–Mar 20). Sidereal Pisces begins Mar 15.

Venus at 27°: The Decans and Terms of Pisces

Venus opens Pisces with a twelve-degree term, tied with Jupiter's in Sagittarius for the longest in the Egyptian scheme, and returns as the exalted planet at 27°, inside the term of Mars. Mercury holds only three degrees, from 16° to 19°.

The Chaldean faces are Saturn, Jupiter and Mars. That last face makes Mars the ruler of both the first and the final ten degrees of the zodiac. The modern scheme uses the water rulers: Neptune, the Moon and Pluto.

Two Fish, Swimming in Opposite Directions

In Greek myth, Aphrodite and her son Eros escaped the monster Typhon by becoming fish and tying themselves together so they would not be separated in the river. The constellation shows the two fish joined by a cord, heading different ways.

That is the permanent tension in Pisces: engage with the real world, or retreat into the inner one. When reality gets harsh, Pisces would rather be somewhere else: in music, art, sleep, fantasy, and sometimes substances. The ones who channel that impulse into creative or spiritual work produce things other signs cannot imagine. Most Pisceans never fully resolve the tension. The wise ones stop trying, and learn to live in both.

Neptune and Saturn Leave Pisces: The 2011–2026 Era

Neptune entered Pisces, its modern home sign, in April 2011 and stayed until January 26, 2026, apart from a brief first step into Aries in 2025. Its previous Pisces passage ran from 1847 to 1862, shortly after the planet was discovered. Saturn joined it from March 2023 and left on February 14, 2026. The two met just over the border, at 0°45′ Aries, six days later.

Jupiter was here, in its traditional home, from 2021 to 2022, and Uranus from 2003 to 2011. The next major arrival is Pluto, which enters Pisces in March 2043 and stays into the late 2060s.

Visits run from first entry to final exit, including retrograde dips back into the previous sign.

Pisces in Relationship

Pisces finds natural company in the other water signs and in the earth signs a sextile away, which give it shape. Its squares are the other mutable signs, and its opposite, Virgo, holds the boundaries it lacks.

Sun signs are a first read. For two real people, compare whole charts with the synastry calculator.

Venus Exalted, Mercury Undone

Venus is exalted in Pisces, at 27°. Here love is devotional and unconditional rather than social or sensual: the love that forgives, the music that makes strangers cry, the art that seems to come from somewhere else. Pisces gives without keeping score, which is its most beautiful trait and its most exploitable one.

Mercury, the planet of categories and logic, is both in detriment and in its fall in Pisces, the only sign where one planet suffers both. Pisces does not think in lists. It thinks in images, impressions and feelings, and it is often right before it can explain why. Partners and colleagues who value that intuition, rather than demanding the reasoning first, get the best of it.

Pisces Suns with charts on TropicalAstro

When Pisces Season Starts, Year by Year

Pisces begins when the Sun reaches 330° of ecliptic longitude, a month before the March equinox. In UTC that has fallen on February 18 in about two years out of three recently, and on February 19 in the rest.

If you were born between February 18 and 20, check your year below to see whether the Sun had left Aquarius.

Across 1930–2040, the earliest start was February 18, 2037 at 07:59 UTC and the latest was February 19, 1932 at 20:28 UTC.

Pisces: What People Ask