November 21 Zodiac Sign: Scorpio or Sagittarius?

November 21 is a cusp birthday: in 18 of the 87 years from 1940 to 2026 the Sun entered Sagittarius during November 21 (US Eastern Time), so people born that day are Scorpio before the change time and Sagittarius after it; in 69 years the change came later and the whole day was Scorpio. Your sign depends on the year and time of birth — see the table. Pacific Time: change during the day in 28 years, whole day Sagittarius in 0, whole day Scorpio in 59.

November 21 at a glance

• Possible Sun signs: Scorpio before the change, Sagittarius after
• Elements: Water (Scorpio), Fire (Sagittarius)
• Modalities: Fixed (Scorpio), Mutable (Sagittarius)
• Rulers: Pluto in modern astrology, Mars in classical (Scorpio); Jupiter (Sagittarius)
• Data: NASA JPL Horizons, 1940–2030

Your birthplace picks the side of the table, Eastern or Pacific, and your birth year picks the row. If your side is blank, Scorpio held November 21 from midnight to midnight on that clock. Where your side shows a clock time, the change happened then: born earlier that day means Scorpio, born at that minute or later means Sagittarius. One example of the zone effect: Sagittarius arrived at 01:39 EST on November 22, 1964, in New York, which on Los Angeles clocks was 22:39 PST on November 21, so that year carries a Pacific time and an empty Eastern cell. Births in Central or Mountain Time get no column; the birth chart sorts those out. The remaining days of the month are covered by November zodiac signs.

Counting from 1940, New York clocks first show a November 21 change in 1976, at 23:22 EST. Within 1940–2026, some years have a November 21 change on the Pacific side but not on the Eastern one: 1956, 1960, 1964, 1968, 1972, 1993, 1997, 2001, 2005 and 2026. Those changes fell between 21:03 PST (1972) and 23:50 PST (1956), when New York was already into November 22.

You need the exact birth time if the year table lists a November 21 change for your coast, or if you were born on a clock other than Eastern or Pacific. With the date, the time and the city of birth in hand, you can check your Sun sign with your birth time in the free birth chart, no account needed. When no birth time is given, the chart is calculated for 12:00 noon and marked as such.

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.

The labels in both paragraphs below come from astrology, which is an interpretive tradition, not a scientifically validated method.

Scorpio covers November 21 up to the change minute. Its element, Water, carries the classical words cold, wet and soft, and in polarity the sign sits with the negative group, also called receptive or yin. Modern astrologers gave the sign to Pluto, whose themes include absolutes, power and transformations; the classical ruler is Mars. Find the sign itself, beyond this date, at Scorpio zodiac sign.

At the change minute Sagittarius begins, and the element words turn over completely. Fire's classical words are hot, dry and ardent, so cold gives way to hot and wet to dry, and no word appears on both lists. Polarity switches as well, from negative to positive, the half the tradition also names active or yang. Growth, adventures and travel to far places are the themes astrology gives Jupiter, the sign's ruler. For Sagittarius beyond this birthday, open Sagittarius zodiac sign.

FAQ

Does "cusp" apply to a November 21 birth? It is the popular word for it, since the Sun can change sign during the day. Still, a birth happens at one moment, and at that moment the Sun belongs to one sign only, so there is no halfway position between Scorpio and Sagittarius. In US Eastern and Pacific Time, from 1940 through 2030, November 21 is Sagittarius only from a change that the local clock places on that date; at any other hour the day is Scorpio.

What time does the Sun change sign on November 21? November 21 hosts the change only in some years. For people born 1940–2026, the Eastern times stretch from 14:57 EST (2024) to 23:23 EST (2009), and the Pacific times from 11:57 PST (2024) to 23:50 PST (1956). In any other year the change reached that coast after November 21, leaving the whole day Scorpio.

How this page was made

Sources and checks: Sun ingress moments from NASA JPL Horizons (1940–2030), set to Eastern and Pacific clock time by the IANA zone rules; sign classifications and planet themes from Wikipedia's "Planets in astrology," "Triplicity," "Astrological sign" and "Astrology and the classical elements"; the science sentence from "Astrology and science." Astrolivo's editorial team prepared the text, cross-checking each claim with these sources and presenting sign meanings as the tradition's readings.