Gemini Zodiac Sign

Gemini is the third sign of the zodiac, represented by the Twins (♊︎). In the tropical zodiac the Sun is in Gemini from about May 20 to June 20, US Eastern Time, with the exact start moving by a day from year to year. Astrology classifies the Gemini sign as Mutable Air, ruled by Mercury.

Gemini at a glance

• Dates (usual): May 20 – June 20 (US Eastern Time)
• Symbol: The Twins
• Glyph: ♊︎
• Element: Air
• Modality: Mutable
• Ruling planet: Mercury (traditional and modern)
• Polarity: Positive / masculine (yang, active)
• Opposite sign: Sagittarius

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

Gemini covers the third 30° slice of the ecliptic, counted from the point where the Sun stands at the March equinox. The Sun's yearly cycle does not fit a whole number of calendar days, and leap years pull the calendar back into step, so the Sun crosses into Gemini at a different clock time each spring. Between 2020 and 2030, Eastern Time, Gemini begins on May 20 in nine years and on May 21 in the other two. Its last day is June 20 in six of those years and June 21 in five.

Time zones can move the date itself. An evening Eastern change can already be the next day in UTC: in 2026 the Sun reaches Gemini at 8:37 PM on May 20 in New York, 00:37 on May 21 in UTC. The reverse holds out west: a change shortly after midnight Eastern, like 2:18 AM EDT on May 21, 2027, is still May 20 in Pacific Time.

Born on one of those change days? Then your birth time and place decide the sign. The boundary degree belongs to the new sign, so at any single moment the Sun occupies one sign only. "Cusp" is a handy popular label for these birthdays, not a blend of two signs. Enter your birth time and city in the birth chart to see which sign the Sun was in.

Astrologers build the Gemini sign out of three parts: Air for its element, Mutable for its modality and Mercury for its ruler. Modality describes where a sign falls within its season, and Gemini's dates close out spring in the Northern Hemisphere, a position the tradition calls mutable. Gemini is also one of the positive, or active, signs. Together they sketch a quick, curious sign that gathers information, turns it over and passes it along.

Before you measure yourself against the list below, keep in mind that astrology is an interpretive tradition, and controlled tests have not shown it to be a scientifically validated method.

Strengths in the tradition

• Curiosity (Air and Mercury): Gemini is read as the sign that wants to know how things work and who said what, the person who opens three articles to answer one question.
• Adaptability (Mutable): Changing plans midweek, switching between tasks, or seeing both sides of an argument is described as coming easily.
• A way with words (Mercury): The tradition links the sign with explaining, translating jargon for a friend and keeping a group conversation moving.

Challenges in the tradition

• Scattered attention (Mutable Air): Many projects get started; fewer get finished once the novelty fades.
• Restless with routine (active polarity, Mutable): The same commute and tasks every day can feel heavier than they look.
• Thinking instead of feeling (Air and Mercury): Astrologers describe a habit of talking a feeling through or analyzing it before letting it land.

The name is Latin for "twins" (in Greek, Dídymoi), and the glyph is ♊︎. The twins are Castor and Pollux, the Dioscuri of Greek myth. They were conceived by different fathers: Zeus fathered Pollux, while Tyndareus, king of Sparta and husband of Leda, fathered Castor. When Castor, the mortal one, died, Pollux begged Zeus to make his brother immortal, and Zeus did it by uniting the two in the heavens.

The stars carry an older story too. Babylonian astronomers called Castor and Pollux the Great Twins and gave them the names Lugal-irra ("The Mighty King") and Meslamta-ea ("The One who has arisen from the Underworld"), both titles of Nergal. The pairing still travels: NASA named its two-person Project Gemini capsule after the sign because the spacecraft could carry two astronauts.

The Gemini zodiac sign and the constellation Gemini are not the same thing. The sign is an exact 30° stretch of the ecliptic (the path the Sun appears to trace over a year), measured from the March equinox. Greek astronomers already counted from that point in the 1st century BC, as Geminus of Rhodes records, and Ptolemy later clarified the rule, explaining why tying evenly spaced signs to the uneven outlines of the constellations would be an error. Precession, a discovery credited to Hipparchus around 130 BC, slowly shifts the equinox against the stars. The tropical signs therefore drift away from the constellations, and from the sidereal zodiac that roughly follows them, by about 1.4° per century. Western astrology, Astrolivo included, uses the tropical signs.

In relationships, the tradition reads a Mercury-ruled Air sign as needing conversation as much as closeness. Interest grows through talk: long dinners that turn into debates, running jokes, a message in the middle of the day about something spotted on the way to work. On compatibility, astrology looks at elements and polarity rather than verdicts: Gemini shares Air with Libra and Aquarius, and its active polarity with the Fire signs, including its opposite, Sagittarius.

At work, Mutable Air is linked with jobs that keep moving: explaining, writing, teaching, research, coordinating people across teams. Varied problems suit the picture; months of one solitary, repetitive task run against it.

When someone says "I'm a Gemini," they mean the Sun sign, which is all that simple, popular sun sign astrology looks at. For most birthdays the date alone settles your Sun sign; on a change day around May 20–21 or June 20–21, birth time and place decide, as explained under Gemini dates. The horoscopic astrology of the Hellenistic era goes further and reads the Moon, the planets, the Ascendant and the twelve houses as well.

Take an example chart with the Sun in Gemini, the Moon in Taurus and a Capricorn Ascendant. Astrologers would call that Gemini Sun curious and talkative, while the Taurus Moon and Capricorn rising add a practical, steady streak, so the chart as a whole comes across calmer than its Sun sign alone would suggest.

The Moon can sit in Gemini even when the Sun isn't; Moon in Gemini covers that placement, which is about emotional needs. Your rising sign, the degree of the ecliptic rising at the time of birth, depends on the exact birth time. Enter your date, time and city in the free birth chart to see all three, with no sign-up needed.

Before Gemini comes Taurus, the second sign, ruled by Venus. After it comes Cancer, the fourth sign and the only one ruled by the Moon. For the whole wheel at once, see all zodiac signs.

FAQ

What are Gemini's dates? Usually May 20 to June 20, US Eastern Time. The start falls on May 20 in 2025 and 2026 (the 2026 change is already May 21 in UTC) and on May 21 in 2027; the table gives each minute.

Which planet rules the Gemini sign? Mercury, in both traditional and modern astrology. Mercury also rules Virgo, the sixth sign.

Is Gemini an air sign? Yes. Gemini is the Mutable Air sign. Air is one of the four classical elements Empedocles named in the fifth century BC, which astrology later tied to the twelve signs.

How this page was made

Prepared by the Astrolivo editorial team from five Wikipedia articles (Gemini in astrology, astrological sign, planets in astrology, zodiac, and astrology and science) and NASA JPL Horizons ephemeris data for the start times, with each fact checked against those sources. Readings of the sign are given as the tradition's interpretations.