Mercury Retrograde Dates
Exact station dates, signs and durations for every Mercury retrograde, worked out from the ephemeris rather than copied from a table.
As of Sep 8, 2026, Mercury is not retrograde.
The next Mercury retrograde starts on in Scorpio and ends on in Scorpio, about 20 days.
Highlighted in the table: the next periodMercury retrograde calendar
Each period runs from the day Mercury appears to stop and turn back (its retrograde station) to the day it resumes direct motion. Dates are UTC. Published almanacs round to the nearest day, so a local calendar can be off by one.
2026 Mercury retrograde dates
| Goes retrograde | Turns direct | Duration |
|---|---|---|
| 22°33′ Pisces | 8°29′ Pisces | 23 days |
| 26°15′ Cancer | 16°19′ Cancer | 24 days |
| 20°58′ Scorpio Next up | 5°02′ Scorpio | 20 days |
2027 Mercury retrograde dates
| Goes retrograde | Turns direct | Duration |
|---|---|---|
| 5°58′ Pisces | 20°55′ Aquarius | 22 days |
| 6°21′ Cancer | 27°28′ Gemini | 24 days |
| 4°55′ Scorpio | 19°18′ Libra | 21 days |
2028 Mercury retrograde dates
| Goes retrograde | Turns direct | Duration |
|---|---|---|
| 19°41′ Aquarius | 3°59′ Aquarius | 21 days |
| 16°18′ Gemini | 7°45′ Gemini | 24 days |
| 18°35′ Libra | 3°28′ Libra | 22 days |
Past dates (2025)
2025 Mercury retrograde dates
| Goes retrograde | Turns direct | Duration |
|---|---|---|
| 9°35′ Aries | 26°49′ Pisces | 23 days |
| 15°34′ Leo | 4°14′ Leo | 24 days |
| 6°51′ Sagittarius | 20°42′ Scorpio | 20 days |
Stations are found by tracking Mercury's apparent ecliptic longitude and pinning down the instant its motion changes direction, then reading off the zodiac sign at that moment. It is the same method professional ephemeris software uses.
What Mercury retrograde actually is
Three or four times a year, Mercury appears to slow down, stop, and drift backwards through the zodiac for about three weeks before turning forward again. This is apparent motion, not real motion. Mercury never reverses in its orbit. It circles the Sun faster than Earth does, so every few months it laps us on the inside, and while it is swinging between us and the Sun its path across our sky runs against the usual direction. The planet is doing nothing unusual. The effect lives entirely in our line of sight.
A word on the physics. Retrograde motion is a trick of viewing angle, and there is no known mechanism by which Mercury's apparent direction could reach across the solar system and interfere with your emails, your flight or your phone. Its gravitational pull on Earth is vanishingly small and does not change when the motion looks reversed. What a retrograde period does offer is a shared, precisely datable rhythm, which is what this page computes.
What astrologers make of it
Astrologers give Mercury communication, thinking, commerce and short trips, so its retrograde is read as a few weeks for slowing those down. The familiar advice runs:
- Double-check messages before you hit send.
- Back up your devices and important files.
- Allow extra time for travel and plans.
- Read contracts twice before you sign.
None of that is fact. It is folklore, and none of it is financial or legal advice. Read generously, it is an invitation to review rather than launch: a window that favours editing, reconnecting and finishing what was left undone over starting something new.
Astrologers say the sign Mercury retrogrades through colours that review (a Pisces retrograde reads differently from a Scorpio one), which is why the table lists the sign of each station. If the slower turning points are the ones you find telling, the Saturn return calculator maps the roughly 29-year reckonings, on a timescale Mercury's three-week loops never touch.
Shadow periods, explained
The shadow (some say retroshade) is the roughly two weeks on either side of the retrograde proper. The pre-retrograde shadow begins when Mercury first reaches the degree where it will later station direct. It then travels forward, stops, retraces that same arc backwards during the retrograde, stations direct, and covers the ground a third time in the post-retrograde shadow. Astrologers treat the shadows as a ramp: a theme that surfaces just before the station is said to resolve only once Mercury has cleared the shadow and re-passed the degree where it first turned back. I don't put much weight on the shadow, but that is the definition. The dates in the table are the core window, with a softer fringe of a week or two at each end.
How these dates are calculated
Nothing here is copied from another site. At build time I sample Mercury's apparent geocentric ecliptic longitude with the MIT-licensed astronomy-engine and watch its velocity. A station is the exact instant that velocity crosses zero, where the apparent motion flips between forward and backward, and I bracket then bisect that moment to within a few seconds before rounding to the day almanacs publish. The zodiac sign beside each date is Mercury's tropical position at that instant. It is the same class of positional model professional software relies on, which is why these dates line up with the published tables.
The same exact-instant search runs every calculator on the site. If you would rather pin down one yearly moment than a recurring loop, the solar return calculator finds the precise time the Sun returns to its natal degree on your birthday, and the Saturn return calculator traces every exact pass, retrograde loops included, of that much longer cycle.
Retrograde dates for the other planets
Mercury is the fastest of the eight, but all of them station. Each planet has its own page: the exact dates ahead, and every period from 1900 to 2100 behind them.
Keep exploring
Two more exact-instant calculators, each running its own ephemeris search.
Mercury retrograde FAQ
The common questions, with the astronomy kept apart from the folklore.
What is Mercury retrograde?
Mercury retrograde is the few weeks, three or four times a year, when Mercury appears from Earth to move backwards across the sky. It is a matter of viewpoint. Mercury orbits faster than we do, and as it overtakes us on the inside its motion against the stars seems to reverse. Astrologers tie those weeks to snags in communication, travel, contracts and gadgets, and read them as a time for reviewing rather than launching. The sky, for its part, is doing nothing unusual.
When is the next Mercury retrograde?
The table on this page lists it, with the day Mercury stations retrograde, the day it stations direct, and the sign each station falls in. Mercury turns retrograde three or four times a year for about three weeks at a stretch, and the dates move every year, so the table is recomputed from the ephemeris each time the site is built instead of being typed in from memory.
How long does Mercury retrograde last?
About three weeks, from the day Mercury appears to stop and turn back to the day it resumes forward motion. Three or four of those a year adds up to Mercury being retrograde about 19% of the time, which is one week in five and a poor alibi for the other four. Many astrologers also count a shadow period of a week or two on either side. The page explains the shadow further down.
Is Mercury retrograde bad?
Not in itself. The reputation is dramatic and the astronomy is three weeks of viewing angle. Astrologers frame the period as a pause, better for reviewing than for launching, and their practical advice is modest: reread the message, back up the laptop, leave early for the train, read the contract twice. Plenty of people notice nothing at all. If you use the window to finish something you had abandoned, it has paid for itself.
What should you not do during Mercury retrograde?
Tradition says go gently with anything new: signing a big agreement, launching a project. It also says read the small print, which is good advice in any month. This is folklore, not a rule, and it is not financial or legal advice. Plenty of people sign and launch during Mercury retrograde and are perfectly fine. Treat the list as a reminder to slow down, not as a ban on living for three weeks.
How often does Mercury go retrograde?
Three or four times a year, which is more than any other planet manages. Mercury is the fastest planet, so it overtakes Earth on the inside every few months, and each pass produces one retrograde of about three weeks. The table on this page lists the exact station dates for this year and the years after it, so you can see every window at once instead of being surprised by each one.
Are Mercury retrograde dates the same every year?
No. There are always three or four retrogrades, but where they land depends on the geometry between Mercury's orbit and ours, and that geometry does not repeat on a twelve-month cycle, so the windows drift through the calendar from one year to the next. That is why the dates here are recomputed from the ephemeris rather than copied from last year's list, and why memory is a poor guide to them.