Pisces Zodiac Sign

Pisces, the Fish (♓︎), is the twelfth and final sign of the zodiac. In the tropical zodiac the Sun is in Pisces from about February 18 to March 20, US Eastern Time; the exact moment shifts every year. Astrology reads the Pisces zodiac sign as Mutable Water under Neptune, with Jupiter as its traditional ruler.

Pisces at a glance

• Dates (usual): February 18 – March 20 (US Eastern Time)
• Symbol: The Fish
• Glyph: ♓︎
• Element: Water
• Modality: Mutable
• Ruling planet: Neptune (modern); Jupiter (traditional)
• Polarity: Negative / feminine (yin, receptive)
• Opposite sign: Virgo

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

Pisces dates cover the last 30° of the zodiac, 330° to 360° of celestial longitude, ending at the March equinox. The calendar year and the Sun's yearly cycle never match exactly, and leap days keep pulling them back together, so the Sun crosses 330° at a different hour each February. Across 2020–2030 in Eastern Time, that hour always fell on February 18. The last Pisces day was March 20 in eight of those years and March 19 in three.

NASA JPL Horizons ephemeris data gives the minute the Sun enters the sign:

Born on or near February 18, or around March 19–20? Then your birth time and place settle it. The 330° point is the first degree of Pisces and 0° the first degree of Aries, so the Sun was in one sign at your birth, never a share of two.

Time zones matter as well. If the Sun switches signs just after midnight in New York, Pacific Time has not reached that date yet; if it switches in the New York evening, UTC has already reached the next date. "Cusp" is the popular word for these birthdays; it describes the date, not a mixed personality. The birth chart sorts it out once you add your birth time and city.

Astrologers build the picture of the Pisces sign from three parts: Water, the Mutable modality and two rulers. Pisces closes Northern Hemisphere winter after Cardinal Capricorn and Fixed Aquarius, which is why it counts as that season's Mutable sign. Water sits in the receptive, yin half of the zodiac. Neptune, the modern ruler, is associated with imagination, dreams, empathy, idealism and artistry, and also with vagueness. Jupiter, the traditional ruler, stands for growth and expansion and is called temperate and benign. The two fish, usually shown swimming in opposite directions, are said to represent a duality within the Pisces personality.

Astrology is an interpretive tradition, not a scientifically validated method, so hold the points below up against your own experience.

Strengths in the tradition

• Empathy (Water and Neptune): Pisces is pictured as the friend who notices someone has gone quiet at dinner and moves over to sit beside them.
• Imagination (Neptune): Astrologers tie the sign to music, painting, storytelling and work that starts from a mood or image.
• Open-handedness (Jupiter): Jupiter's benign reputation is read as generosity with time and second chances.

Challenges in the tradition

• Blurred edges (Water and Mutable): Taking on the mood of a room can make it hard to tell one's own feelings from everyone else's.
• Pulled two ways (Mutable and the two fish): A choice between two good options can stay open longer than anyone wants.
• Plans that stay vague (Neptune): The planet that feeds imagination is also linked with vagueness, so details and deadlines may slide.

Pisces is Latin for "fishes" (Greek Ikhthyes). The symbol shows two fish tied by a cord, typically at the mouth or the tail; the glyph is ♓︎. It is one of the earliest signs on record: a pair of fish appears around 2300 BC on an Egyptian coffin lid. The cord even has a star. Ptolemy placed the knot joining the fish at Alpha Piscium, also called Alrescha, from the Arabic for "the well rope" or "the cord."

In one Greek myth, Aphrodite and her son Eros turned into fish to escape the monster Typhon, sent by Gaia against the gods. In another, fish rolled an egg from the Euphrates River to the shore, doves sat on it until Aphrodite hatched, and in gratitude she set the fish in the night sky. Classical readings also link the symbol to the ichthyocentaurs, who helped Aphrodite at her birth from the sea.

Sign and constellation are not the same thing. The tropical sign Astrolivo uses is an exact 30° slice of the ecliptic, 330° to 360°, measured from the March equinox. That equinox point slides slowly westward through the stars, an effect called precession whose discovery is credited to Hipparchus around 130 BC, so the tropical signs drift from the constellations, and from the star-based sidereal zodiac, by about 1.4° per century. Pisces shows the result: the March equinox now lies in the constellation Pisces, while the tropical sign's stretch of sky is mostly in the constellation Aquarius.

In relationships, astrologers read Mutable Water as tender and accommodating; Venus is exalted in Pisces, which fits a picture of affection given freely. Pisces is described as picking up a partner's mood before a word is said, and as quick to forgive. The flip side is the two fish again: a clear no, or a plain request for what Pisces needs, may come late. In element terms, the tradition sees Pisces in tune with the other Water signs, Cancer and Scorpio, and sharing its receptive polarity with the Earth signs Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn; none of that is a promise about any couple.

At work, Neptune's link with artistry and Jupiter's with higher education and belief point the tradition toward creative fields, teaching, helping roles and causes worth believing in. The Mutable side suits shifting plans; rigid hierarchies and hour-by-hour schedules are read as harder going.

Being "a Pisces" refers to the Sun sign, one placement among many. For most birthdays the date alone settles your Sun sign; around February 18 or March 19–20, birth time and place decide it, as explained under Pisces dates. A full chart also places the Moon, the planets, the Ascendant and the twelve houses.

Take an example chart that pairs a Pisces Sun with a Taurus Moon and a Leo Ascendant. An astrologer would set an adaptable Water Sun beside a Fixed Earth Moon that likes things settled and a Fixed Fire Ascendant that looks confident on first meeting, so the person may seem surer than the Sun sign suggests.

Moon in Pisces is a separate placement, read for emotional needs. The rising sign is the degree of the ecliptic rising at the moment of birth, so it needs the clock time. Enter your birth date, time and city in the free birth chart calculator to see Sun, Moon and Ascendant side by side, with no sign-up.

Pisces follows Aquarius, the Fixed Air sign of the Water-bearer, and gives way to Aries, the Cardinal Fire sign of the Ram, which starts the zodiac again at the March equinox. The whole wheel is on all zodiac signs.

FAQ

When are the Pisces dates? Roughly February 18 through March 20 in US Eastern Time. From 2020 to 2030 the Sun entered Pisces on February 18 every year, Eastern Time, and the last Pisces day was March 19 or 20; the table under Pisces dates gives 2025–2027 times in Eastern Time and UTC.

Which planet rules Pisces? Two answers are in use. Modern astrologers name Neptune, assigned to Pisces in the 20th century; classical astrology names Jupiter, the same planet that rules Sagittarius.

What element is Pisces? Water. Pisces is the Mutable member of the Water trio, after Cardinal Cancer and Fixed Scorpio, and it sits in the receptive half of the zodiac.

How this page was made

Prepared by the Astrolivo editorial team from the Wikipedia articles Pisces (astrology), Astrological sign, Planets in astrology, Zodiac, and Astrology and science, together with NASA JPL Horizons ephemeris data for the Sun's entry times, and fact-checked against those sources. Sign meanings on the page reflect how the astrological tradition reads them.