August Zodiac Signs: Leo and Virgo

August: Leo until the Sun enters Virgo. In US Eastern Time the change fell on August 22 in 29 years, August 23 in 58 years (birth years 1940-2026, JPL Horizons); on those days the sign depends on the year and time of birth.

August at a glance

• Signs: Leo → Virgo
• Change days (ET): see the table below
• Elements: Fire (Leo) → Earth (Virgo)
• Modalities: Fixed (Leo) → Mutable (Virgo)
• Rulers: Sun and Mercury

For all but two days, the date alone settles the August zodiac sign: in US Eastern Time, every birth year 1940–2026 had Leo through the 21st and Virgo from the 24th. Only the 22nd and the 23rd ask for the year of birth, plus the clock time whenever the switch landed on that date.

A switch in the minutes right after midnight Eastern Time is still dated the previous evening on Central, Mountain and Pacific clocks; one that lands after 8 p.m. Eastern already falls on the next calendar date in UTC.

Leo opened around July 22–23 by the Eastern calendar, so August gets the end of the sign. For all 1940–2026 birth years, US Eastern Time, August 22 starts as Leo, and it stays Leo to midnight in any year the Sun waits until the 23rd.

Fire is Leo's element, and the tradition's words for it are hot, dry and ardent; the sign shares that triplicity with Aries and Sagittarius. Within northern summer Leo is the middle sign, south of the equator the middle of winter, and Fixed is simply the name of that middle place. Its polarity is positive, also called active.

Leo's ruler is the Sun, which in astrology spends about a month in each of the twelve signs. For the sign beyond its August weeks, go to the Leo zodiac sign page.

Virgo arrives on August 22 or 23 in Eastern Time and lasts into September, ending at the Sun's move into Libra, around September 22–23. August gets the opening days: births on August 24–31 are Virgo, and so is the whole of August 23 in any year whose switch came on the 22nd.

Earth is Virgo's element, described with the words heavy, cold and dry, and Taurus and Capricorn belong to the same triplicity. Mutable names its place at the end of northern summer, or of winter in the Southern Hemisphere, and it sits on the receptive, or negative, side of the polarity divide.

Read what follows as astrology's view of a sign: astrology is an interpretive tradition, not a scientifically validated method. Mercury, Virgo's ruler, is the planet of reasoning and rationality, described as curious and unemotional, and the tradition holds it to be essentially cold and dry. Two of those words already sit in Earth's list. With ruler and element agreeing on cold and dry, astrologers read Virgo's curiosity as the grounded kind: a question pursued by reasoning until the answer will bear weight, like asking how a suspension bridge carries its load and reading on until the explanation holds together. So the late-August switch trades hot, ardent Fire for heavy, cold Earth, Fixed for Mutable, active for receptive and the Sun for Mercury; the rest of Virgo, past its August days, is on the Virgo zodiac sign page.

August 22 and 23 birthdays tend to be labeled "cusp" dates. The two signs never overlap, though: Virgo begins at a single instant, so a birth on either date falls before that instant or after it, never in between.

Which date carries the change has moved over time. In US Eastern Time, birth years 1940–1983 mostly had it on August 23 (38 years, with 6 on August 22); for 1984–2026 the two run close, August 22 in 23 years and August 23 in 20. So for someone born before 1984, August 23 is the date where the hour usually matters; for later births it can be either one.

Every birth year has its own line on the August 22 zodiac sign and August 23 zodiac sign pages, with the switch time read off both the Eastern and the Pacific clock. The two can disagree: in 13 birth years between 1940 and 2018 the Sun entered Virgo in the first hours of August 23 Eastern Time, while Pacific clocks still read the evening of August 22.

For those two dates the answer turns on birth year, time and city. Type all three into Astrolivo's birth chart, which is free and asks for no account, to check with your birth time. Leave the time blank and the calculation runs for 12:00 noon, with the result marked as such, so the time on a birth certificate is worth digging out first.

Instead of relying on a single noon position, the calculator checks for any sign changes across your entire local birth date. If the Sun, the Moon, or another planet changes sign during that local day, the result shows each possible sign for that day rather than guessing a single one.

Next door are July zodiac signs before and September zodiac signs after; the full calendar sits on birthday zodiac signs.

FAQ

What zodiac sign is August? Leo, then Virgo. In US Eastern Time, August 1–21 was Leo and August 24–31 Virgo for all birth years 1940–2026; on August 22 and 23 the year decides, and in a switch year so does the time of birth.

Is a Virgo in August? Yes. Anyone born August 24–31 is a Virgo (US Eastern Time, birth years 1940–2026), and so is anyone born on August 22 or 23 after the Sun entered Virgo that year.

Is August 22 Leo or Virgo? In US Eastern Time it opens as Leo for all birth years 1940–2026. Before 1984 it usually stayed Leo all day; for 1984–2026 the switch to Virgo came on August 22 in 23 of 43 years, so the birth time often decides.

How this page was made

Prepared by the Astrolivo editorial team, with the August change days from NASA JPL Horizons ephemeris data and the sign facts from the Wikipedia articles "Astrological sign," "Triplicity," "Astrology and the classical elements," "Planets in astrology" and "Astrology and science," each statement fact-checked against them. Leo and Virgo are presented as the astrological tradition reads them.