September 22 Zodiac Sign: Virgo or Libra?

September 22 is a cusp birthday: in 38 of the 87 years from 1940 to 2026 the Sun entered Libra during September 22 (US Eastern Time), so people born that day are Virgo before the change time and Libra after it; in 49 years the change came later and the whole day was Virgo. Your sign depends on the year and time of birth — see the table. Pacific Time: change during the day in 50 years, whole day Libra in 0, whole day Virgo in 37.

September 22 at a glance

• Possible Sun signs: Virgo before the change, Libra after
• Elements: Earth (Virgo), Air (Libra)
• Modalities: Mutable (Virgo), Cardinal (Libra)
• Rulers: Mercury (Virgo), Venus (Libra)
• Data: NASA JPL Horizons, 1940–2030

Find the birth year, then pick the Eastern or Pacific entry according to where the baby was born. With no time printed for that clock, Virgo kept the full date there. With a time printed, Libra took over at that minute, so a baby who arrived sooner is a Virgo and one who arrived at that minute or after is a Libra. Sometimes only one clock has a time, as in 1990: the Pacific entry reads 23:56 PDT, still September 22 in Los Angeles, while New York clocks had reached 02:56 EDT on September 23. Chicago and Denver births get no column here; for them, use the birth chart described just below. The month's other dates are on September zodiac signs.

Not one Eastern September 22 from 1940 through 1947 held the change; 1948 was the first year New York clocks showed it on this date. Before-noon changes on Eastern Time arrived only with 2008 (11:44 EDT), and 2024 set the earliest mark for birth years 1940–2026, 08:44 EDT. The late record belongs to 1977: 23:29 EDT, 31 minutes before New York's midnight. A separate set of birth years belongs to Los Angeles alone: 1940, 1944, 1961, 1965, 1969, 1973, 1990, 1994, 1998, 2002, 2006 and 2023, when Libra arrived there late on the 22nd, between 20:46 PST (1940) and 23:56 PDT (1990), after New York had already passed midnight. One of those Pacific times, 21:02 in 1944, is labeled PWT, Pacific War Time: the hour-ahead clock setting the US used from February 9, 1942 to September 30, 1945. It is the table's only change time on War Time. The computed 2028 row, a future year, has an Eastern change at 07:45 EDT, before the 08:44 EDT of 2024.

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.

On September 22 the hour of birth can decide the sign: it does in any year with a printed change time, and it may when the birthplace is on Central or Mountain time. No fee, no sign-up: type the birthplace, the birth date and the time into the birth chart to check your Sun sign with your birth time. If nobody wrote the time down, the chart is calculated for 12:00 noon and marked as such.

Astrology is an interpretive tradition, not a scientifically validated method; read the two sketches below as its labels for signs, not as statements about any real September 22 baby.

Virgo covers every September 22 birth that comes ahead of the switch, and the whole date in years without one. Virgo belongs to Earth, an element the classical list pairs with heavy, cold and dry. Its polarity is negative; astrology's other names for that side are receptive and yin. Mercury, its ruler, is described in astrology as a curious planet that governs messages, whether they travel by post, email or telephone. Virgo zodiac sign covers the rest of the sign.

Libra has the rest of the date once the switch comes. For Air, Libra's element, the same list gives light, hot and wet. Libra is a positive sign, also called active or expressive. Venus rules Libra; astrology ties the planet to the pull of pleasure and comfort. For the full sign, see Libra zodiac sign.

FAQ

Is a September 22 cusp baby a mix of Virgo and Libra? No. The word "cusp" attaches to birthdays like this one because the Sun may leave Virgo for Libra in the course of the day. The switch itself takes no time at all, so at the moment of birth the Sun sits in just one sign, and which one depends on the birth year and the time on the local clock.

What time does the Sun change sign on September 22? It shifts each year and differs by coast. On Eastern clocks, the September 22 change for births from 1940 to 2026 fell between 08:44 EDT (2024) at the earliest and 23:29 EDT (1977) at the latest; on Pacific clocks the span ran from 05:44 PDT (2024) to 23:56 PDT (1990). Whenever a coast had no change that day, Libra started there on September 23 and September 22 stayed Virgo around the clock.

How this page was made

Ephemeris positions from NASA JPL Horizons give the Sun's Libra ingress for 1940–2030, and the IANA tz database converts each one to local clock time on both coasts, with daylight saving and War Time applied. The sign material draws on four Wikipedia entries: "Astrology and science," "Planets in astrology," "Astrology and the classical elements" and "Astrological sign." Preparation and fact-checking against these sources were done by the Astrolivo editorial team; any sign meaning given is the tradition's, not a finding.