Capricorn Zodiac Sign

Capricorn is the tenth sign of the zodiac, symbolized by the Sea-goat (♑︎). In the tropical zodiac, the Sun is in Capricorn from about December 21 to January 19 in US Eastern Time, so the sign starts in December and ends in January; the exact moment shifts every year. The Capricorn zodiac sign is Cardinal Earth, ruled by Saturn.

Capricorn at a glance

• Dates (usual): December 21 – January 19 (US Eastern Time)
• Symbol: The Sea-goat
• Glyph: ♑︎
• Element: Earth
• Modality: Cardinal
• Ruling planet: Saturn (traditional and modern)
• Polarity: Negative / feminine (yin, receptive)
• Opposite sign: Cancer

Born near the start or end of Capricorn? Check your Sun sign in your birth chart

Capricorn covers 270° to 300° of celestial longitude, counted from the Sun's position at the March equinox. Each Capricorn season runs across New Year's Day, so a January 10, 2027, birthday belongs to the season that began on December 21, 2026.

The calendar year and the Sun's yearly cycle are not the same length, and leap years keep correcting the calendar, so the moment the Sun reaches 270° moves; in the table, which uses NASA JPL Horizons ephemeris data, it arrives almost six hours later each year. In US Eastern Time the start date itself has held steady: from 2020 through 2030 Capricorn begins on December 21 every year. The end is what varies, with the last day falling on January 19 six times in that span and on January 20 five times.

Born on December 21, January 19 or January 20? Then the date needs help from your birth time and place. The 270° point is the first degree of Capricorn rather than the last of Sagittarius, and at the moment of your birth the Sun stood in one sign only.

The calendar date of a change can also differ by US time zone. Just after midnight Eastern Time, Pacific Time is still on the previous day; on an Eastern evening, UTC has already moved to the next day. The 2027 ingress is an example: 9:42 PM on December 21 in New York, 02:42 on December 22 in UTC. Birthdays like these get called "cusp" birthdays, but being born close to a boundary does not make anyone part Sagittarius and part Capricorn. Enter the birth time and city in your birth chart to check your Sun sign.

Astrologers read the Capricorn sign from Earth, the Cardinal modality and Saturn. A modality describes a sign's place in its season, and Cardinal signs open one, the way Aries opens spring; Capricorn begins in late December, at the start of Northern Hemisphere winter. The tradition sums up Cardinal Earth as action in the material world: initiative aimed at concrete, practical results. Saturn, the sign's ruler in both classical and modern lists, is associated by astrologers with structure, time and limits.

Astrology is an interpretive tradition, not a scientifically validated method; take the lists below as the tradition's picture and decide for yourself what fits.

Strengths in the tradition

• Planning ahead (Cardinal Earth): Capricorn is linked with starting things that have a tangible payoff, like mapping out a kitchen remodel room by room before the first cabinet comes down.
• Patience over the long haul (Saturn): Astrologers describe a sign comfortable with goals that take years and content with steady progress month after month.
• Reliability (Earth): A promise is treated as a commitment. If a Capricorn says the report will be ready Friday, it tends to be ready Friday.
• Composure (receptive Earth): A measured manner under pressure, more inclined to watch first and speak second.

Challenges in the tradition

• Rigid about rules (Saturn and Earth): A clear sense of how things should be done can harden into "this is how it has always worked."
• Work before rest (Cardinal and Saturn): Stopping for the day can feel harder than finishing one more task.
• Reserve that reads as coolness (receptive Earth): Feelings are kept close, and people who do not know a Capricorn well may mistake that for distance.

Capricorn is Latin for "horned goat," and the Greek name is Aigókerōs. The glyph is ♑︎ and the symbol is the Sea-goat. The sign is named after the constellation Capricornus, the goat.

Sign and constellation are not the same thing, though. Greek astronomers set the first degrees of four signs at the two equinoxes and the two solstices, and Capricorn's 270° is the solstice point the Sun reaches in December. Ptolemy later argued that the signs must be counted from those seasonal points rather than from the uneven outlines of the star patterns. Meanwhile precession of the equinoxes, whose discovery is attributed to Hipparchus around 130 BC, moves the tropical signs about 1.4° per century against the stars that the sidereal zodiac follows. That is why tropical Capricorn and the stars of Capricornus no longer line up. Astrolivo uses the tropical sign: the 30° slice from 270° to 300°.

In relationships, astrologers read Saturn-ruled Cardinal Earth as slow to commit and steady once committed. Care tends to look practical, like showing up early to help a partner move or planning a weekend down to the dinner reservation, and follow-through counts for more than big speeches. On element harmony, the tradition notes that Capricorn shares Earth with Taurus and Virgo, and shares its receptive polarity with the Water signs Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces.

At work, the tradition ties the sign to structure: a clear goal, a plan with milestones and the discipline to finish. Capricorn is read as comfortable carrying responsibility on long projects and less at ease with vague instructions or priorities that change every week. The flip side astrologers point to is a reluctance to hand tasks to others.

For most birthdays the date alone settles your Sun sign. The exceptions are December 21 and January 19–20, covered under Capricorn dates above. Even so, the Sun is only one placement in a chart.

The Moon in Capricorn is covered on its own page: the Moon's sign is read for emotional needs, and plenty of people have a Capricorn Moon with the Sun somewhere else. The rising sign, or Ascendant, is the degree of the ecliptic rising at the moment of birth, which is why it needs a birth time. Take an example chart with the Sun in Capricorn, the Moon in Leo and Gemini rising. An astrologer would weigh a planning Cardinal Earth Sun against a Fixed Fire Moon and a Mutable Air Ascendant, so the person might come across as chatty and quick before the more deliberate side shows.

To see your own Sun, Moon and rising sign side by side, add your birth date, time and city to the free birth chart calculator; there is no sign-up.

Capricorn follows Sagittarius, the Mutable Fire sign of the Archer, ruled by Jupiter, and comes before Aquarius, the Fixed Air sign of the Water-bearer, which shares Saturn as its traditional ruler. See how the elements repeat around the wheel in all zodiac signs.

FAQ

When does Capricorn start and end? Usually December 21 to January 19 in US Eastern Time. In 2025, 2026 and 2027 the Sun enters Capricorn on December 21 Eastern Time (in 2027 already December 22 in UTC); exact times are in the table above.

What planet rules Capricorn? Saturn, in both traditional and modern astrology. Saturn is also the traditional ruler of Aquarius, which modern astrologers give to Uranus.

Which element does Capricorn belong to? Earth. Capricorn is the Cardinal member of the Earth group; Taurus is the Fixed one and Virgo the Mutable one.

How this page was made

Prepared by the Astrolivo editorial team from the Wikipedia articles on Capricorn (astrology), astrological signs, planets in astrology, the zodiac, and astrology and science, together with NASA JPL Horizons ephemeris data for the ingress times, and fact-checked against them. Astrological meanings are given as the tradition's readings.