Every planet in your birth chart is travelling. The Sun goes once around the zodiac in a year, the Moon in about four weeks, Saturn in about twenty-nine years. Sooner or later each one arrives back at the exact degree it held when you were born. A planetary return is the chart of that instant: the whole sky at the moment one planet comes home.

Your birth chart describes who you are and never changes. A return chart describes a period. It opens when the planet comes back, and it stays in effect until the next return of the same planet.

A moment, and a place

A return chart is cast for a moment and also for a place. The planets stand in the same degrees whatever city you read them from, but the houses and the angles do not. A solar return calculated for where you live and the same return calculated for your birthplace put the same planets in different houses, and they are read differently. Astrologers call casting it for somewhere new a relocated return.

Some returns also happen more than once. Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn all turn retrograde from time to time, and when that happens near their birth degree they cross it two or three times instead of once. The return is then not a single day but the whole span between the first and the last crossing. The chart is cast for the first pass, and the others are the same theme coming round again.

The solar return: your year

The best known is the solar return, the moment the Sun reaches the degree and minute it held at your birth. It happens once a year, within a day or so of your birthday, though rarely at the hour you were born. A year is not a whole number of days, so the Sun reaches your birth degree a few hours earlier or later each time, and the return can fall on the day before or the day after your birthday. This surprises people who have celebrated on the wrong day for decades without noticing any harm.

The chart is valid for the year, until the next solar return. Look first at the Ascendant of the return, the sign rising at that moment, which colours how you meet the year. Then at the house the Sun falls in within the return chart: a return Sun in the tenth is a year that happens in public, a return Sun in the fourth a year that happens at home.

A hypothetical example. Suppose a solar return has Capricorn rising and Saturn close to the return Midheaven. That tends to be a year measured by what gets finished: responsibilities, a visible role, work that people will judge. The same person's next return might have Cancer rising and Venus near the Ascendant, a year whose centre of gravity moves toward home, comfort and the people closest. Nothing about the person changed between the two. The year did.

The lunar return: your month

The Moon comes back to its birth degree every twenty-seven days and a third, so there are thirteen lunar returns in a year. Each chart is valid until the next one, about four weeks later, and is read as the tone of that month: moods, needs, what you find yourself attending to. Look first at the return Ascendant and at the house the Moon falls in within the return chart, which says where your feelings will tend to gather.

It is a small cycle and reads best lightly. A lunar return is weather rather than climate. If a lunar return puts the Moon in the fourth house, it is perfectly reasonable to notice that you have been rearranging the same shelf for three evenings.

The Mercury return: a cycle of the mind

Seen from Earth, Mercury never strays far from the Sun, so it comes back to its birth degree roughly once a year. When it is retrograde nearby, one return becomes three exact passes over a couple of months. The chart describes the coming cycle of thinking, learning, speaking and deciding, until the next Mercury return. Look first at where the return Mercury falls, and whether it is retrograde: a retrograde return Mercury tends to describe a cycle of revisiting and rethinking rather than of new ground.

For example, a Mercury return with Mercury in the ninth house of the return chart, closely aspecting natal Jupiter, suggests a year in which study, travel or a new way of seeing things takes up more of your attention than usual.

The Venus return: a cycle of the heart

Venus also comes back about once a year, though a retrograde loop near the birth degree can delay a return by months and stretch it into three passes. The chart describes the coming cycle of love, friendship, pleasure, money and what you value, until the next Venus return. Look first at the house Venus falls in and at the aspects it makes to your birth planets. A retrograde return Venus tends to describe a cycle of reviewing what you love rather than looking for something new.

A hypothetical example: a Venus return with Venus in the seventh house of the return chart and the return Moon trine natal Venus points toward a year in which partnership, and how easily affection flows in it, is the central question.

The Mars return: a cycle of drive

Mars takes about two years to come home, longer when a retrograde loop sits on the birth degree, in which case the return can be three passes spread over several months. The chart describes the coming two years or so of energy, ambition, courage and conflict: what you start and what you are willing to fight for, until the next Mars return. Look first at the house Mars falls in and at any planet on the angles of the return chart.

For example, a Mars return with Mars rising on the Ascendant tends to describe a stretch of initiative and visible effort, with less patience than usual for waiting to be asked.

The Jupiter return: a chapter of growth

Jupiter comes back about every twelve years, near the ages of 12, 24, 36, 48, 60 and so on. Its return opens a twelve-year chapter of growth: what you reach for, what you believe in, where your opportunities and also your excesses come from. Jupiter often crosses its birth degree three times, so the return can span most of a year. Look first at the return Ascendant and the house Jupiter falls in, which suggests where the chapter tends to expand.

A hypothetical example: a Jupiter return at 36 with Jupiter in the tenth house of the return chart describes a chapter that opens with ambition and public life, and possibly with a few more commitments accepted than the calendar can hold.

The Saturn return: a stage of life

Saturn comes back at about 29, 58 and 87. The first Saturn return is the one everybody has heard of: the stretch when what you built in your twenties is tested, what is not really yours tends to fall away, and what you commit to tends to last. Saturn usually crosses its birth degree three times over most of a year, so read the chart as the theme of that whole period, and of the years that follow it, rather than of a single day.

For example, a Saturn return with Saturn in the fourth house of the return chart puts the questions of home, family and roots at the centre of the stage that opens. The same return with Saturn in the tenth puts them in career and reputation.

The nodal return: a change of direction

The lunar nodes are not planets but the two points where the Moon's path crosses the Sun's. They move backwards through the zodiac and come back to where they stood at your birth about every eighteen years and seven months, near the ages of 18, 37, 55 and 74. The nodal return is less about what you build than about where you are heading: the axis of what you are drawn toward and what you are asked to leave behind starts a new round. People often look back on a nodal return as a season when a life changed direction, though it rarely feels like anything special while it is happening. Look first at the house the North Node falls in, which suggests where the coming cycle tends to pull.

How our report works

Choose the person, the return you want (solar, lunar, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn or nodal) and a starting date, and the report finds the first return after that date. To see your next solar return, leave the date as today; to look back at your first Saturn return, choose a date a little before your twenty-eighth birthday.

You can also choose the place. Left empty, it uses the residence in the birth data for a chart that belongs to a 12andUs account, and otherwise the birthplace. You can type any city instead, for example the place you expect to be on the day of the return. Once the report is open, you can change the return, the date or the place and run it again without going back.

The report gives the exact moment of the return in the time zone of the place it is cast for, the natal position the planet is returning to, and which return this is for you (your thirty-fourth solar return, for instance). For the Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Venus and Mars it also says how long the chart is in effect, which is until the next return. When the planet crosses your birth degree more than once, every pass is listed.

Below that come a two-ring wheel, with your birth chart inside and the return chart outside, and the points that define the return: the return Ascendant, the return Moon by sign and house, and any planets on the return angles. Tables list the return planets with both their return house and their natal house, the twelve houses of the return with the planets inside each, and every aspect between the return chart and your birth chart, closest first, each with its reading. You can also ask the AI astrologer to read the whole return for you. Ingress charts, cast for the Sun entering a cardinal sign, have a report of their own.

Do you need a birth time?

For the planets, no: the report can work from a noon chart. For the houses, yes, and the houses carry much of what a return chart has to say. With no birth time, read the aspects and treat the house positions as missing rather than as wrong. The lunar return is the most sensitive: without a time, the natal Moon is known only within about six degrees, so the moment of the return can be off by up to half a day.

A return chart is a frame rather than a forecast: it describes the shape of a period and the questions it puts, and it reads best alongside the transits running at the same time. When you are ready, cast your solar return or any other planetary return here, for the place where you will be.

Frequently asked questions

What is a solar return chart?
The chart of the moment the Sun comes back to the exact degree it held when you were born, once a year near your birthday. It is read as the tone of the year that follows, until the next return.

Is my solar return always on my birthday?
Usually within a day either side, and rarely at the same hour. Because a year is not a whole number of days, the Sun reaches your birth degree a few hours earlier or later each year.

Should I use the place I live or the place I was born?
Where you will be when the return happens. The planets are the same everywhere, but the houses and angles change with the place. The report defaults to the residence in the birth data, or the birthplace, and lets you type any city instead.

Which returns can I calculate?
The Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and the lunar nodes. Choose the one you want from the list, along with the date to start looking from.

Why does my return have three dates?
Because the planet turned retrograde near your birth degree and crossed it three times. This can happen with Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. The chart is cast for the first pass, and the whole span is the return.

Is a return chart the same as a birth chart?
No. The birth chart is who you are and never changes. A return chart describes one period, and it is read against the birth chart rather than in place of it.