"Mercury is in retrograde" has become everyday shorthand for crossed wires, lost emails and travel delays. Behind the joke is a real astronomical effect that happens about three times a year. This guide explains what retrograde motion is, lists the Mercury retrograde periods for 2025 to 2028 as Fate Hall calculates them, and looks at what astrologers make of it.
What "retrograde" means
Planets do not actually reverse. All of them orbit the Sun in the same direction. But we watch them from the Earth, which is moving too, and from our moving viewpoint a planet sometimes seems to stop, drift backward against the stars for a few weeks, stop again and move forward. That backward stretch is the retrograde period, and the two stopping points are called stations.
For Mercury, the effect happens when it swings round the near side of the Sun and overtakes the Earth on the inside track, rather like a faster car seeming to slide backward when you pass it. Because Mercury laps the Sun every 88 days, this happens three — occasionally four — times a year, each time for about three weeks.
Mercury retrograde dates, 2025–2028
| Retrograde from – direct again | Sign at start → end | Length |
|---|---|---|
| Mar 15, 2025 – Apr 7, 2025 | Aries → Pisces | 23 days |
| Jul 18, 2025 – Aug 11, 2025 | Leo → Leo | 24 days |
| Nov 9, 2025 – Nov 29, 2025 | Sagittarius → Scorpio | 20 days |
| Feb 26, 2026 – Mar 20, 2026 | Pisces → Pisces | 23 days |
| Jun 29, 2026 – Jul 23, 2026 | Cancer → Cancer | 24 days |
| Oct 24, 2026 – Nov 13, 2026 | Scorpio → Scorpio | 20 days |
| Feb 9, 2027 – Mar 3, 2027 | Pisces → Aquarius | 22 days |
| Jun 10, 2027 – Jul 4, 2027 | Cancer → Gemini | 24 days |
| Oct 7, 2027 – Oct 28, 2027 | Scorpio → Libra | 21 days |
| Jan 24, 2028 – Feb 14, 2028 | Aquarius → Aquarius | 21 days |
| May 21, 2028 – Jun 14, 2028 | Gemini → Gemini | 24 days |
| Sep 19, 2028 – Oct 11, 2028 | Libra → Libra | 22 days |
The dates are the moments Mercury stands still, worked out from the same planetary formulas Fate Hall uses for birth charts. They have been checked against an independent high-precision astronomy library: all 24 stations fall on the same date, and the times agree to within a quarter of an hour. In a birth chart, Fate Hall marks a planet as retrograde when its position a day later is further back in the zodiac. The dates are given in Universal Time; in Asia and Australia a station can fall on the next calendar day, and in the Americas on the previous one.
Notice that many periods start in one sign and end in the previous one: Mercury moves back between about nine and sixteen degrees, often enough to cross a sign boundary. Astrologers read such periods as touching the themes of both signs.
What astrologers associate with it
Mercury rules communication, thinking, paperwork, short journeys and trade, so its retrograde periods are traditionally linked to:
- misunderstandings and messages that go astray;
- delays in travel, deliveries and contracts;
- technology and devices behaving badly;
- people and topics from the past coming back.
The constructive reading, which many modern astrologers prefer, is that the "re-" words suit these weeks: review, revise, repair, reconnect, rethink. It is seen as a good time to finish and check work rather than launch something new. If you do sign a contract or buy a device during a retrograde, the usual advice is simply to read the small print twice and keep backups.
There is no scientific evidence that Mercury's apparent motion affects events on Earth, and it is worth remembering that emails go astray and trains are late in every month of the year. Treat the retrograde calendar as a prompt to slow down and double-check, not a reason to put your life on hold.
Retrograde planets in a birth chart
When a planet was retrograde at your birth, Fate Hall shows a small ℞ next to it in the chart table. Mercury is retrograde on roughly one day in five, so about a fifth of people have it in their chart. The outer planets are retrograde far more often — Saturn more than a third of the time, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto over forty per cent — so a ℞ next to them is common. See the table in The Planets and the Twelve Houses for every planet.
Astrologers usually read a natal retrograde as energy that turns inward. A retrograde Mercury, for example, is often linked to someone who thinks things over carefully before speaking, revisits ideas and learns best by reviewing.
The shadow period
Some astrologers also watch the "shadow": the weeks before the retrograde when Mercury first passes the degree where it will later turn back, and the weeks after when it returns to the degree where it turned. Fate Hall does not mark shadow periods, but you can work them out from the table: the shadow covers the same stretch of the zodiac as the retrograde itself.
Common questions
Do other planets go retrograde? Yes, every planet except the Sun and Moon. Venus is retrograde for about six weeks every year and a half, Mars for two to two and a half months about every two years, and the outer planets for four to five and a half months every year.
Does BaZi have anything like this? No. BaZi and the Chinese almanac follow the Sun's solar terms and the sixty-day cycle rather than the planets. For choosing good days, the almanac's day officers and Yellow Path days play the role that retrograde calendars play for some Western astrologers.
Related guides
- The Planets and the Twelve HousesThe ten bodies of a birth chart and what they stand for, how long each stays in a sign, the twelve houses, and why Fate Hall uses whole sign houses.
- Astrology AspectsThe five major aspects, how angles and orbs are measured, worked examples, how many aspects a typical chart has, and what each aspect suggests.
- The Chinese AlmanacWhat the daily entries of the Chinese almanac mean — the 28 lunar mansions, the twelve day officers, Yellow and Black Path days, clash and sha — and how Fate Hall calculates them.