Mercury retrograde

Nothing happens to Mercury. The Earth overtakes it on the inside of its orbit, and from here the planet appears to reverse against the fixed stars for about three weeks. Astrologically the period is read as a time for revision rather than initiation — reviewing, repairing and finishing what was already started, rather than launching what was not.

The signs Mercury actually moves through while retrograde. In 2026 those are listed in the table above, with the sign it stations in and the sign it stations direct in when the two differ. The tradition reads a retrograde as landing hardest on people with placements in those signs, and on whichever house the transit falls in for you — which depends on your rising sign, not your sun sign.

The banner at the top of this page answers that against today's date, using the same computed stations as the table. If Mercury is direct, it also gives the date the next retrograde begins.

That Mercury appears to move backwards against the fixed stars. Nothing about the planet changes — the effect is a trick of perspective, the same one that makes a slower car seem to slide backwards when you overtake it. Mercury laps the Sun faster than the Earth does, so three or four times a year it passes us on the inside and appears to reverse for about three weeks.

Three or four times a year, for roughly twenty-one to twenty-four days each time. Mercury spends about eighteen per cent of the year in apparent retrograde motion, which is more than any other visible planet and the reason it dominates the conversation.

Because the apparent backwards arc is about ten to sixteen degrees, and a sign is thirty. When the station happens early in a sign, the retreat carries Mercury back over the boundary — which is why a retrograde that begins in Aries can end in Pisces, and why astrologers read those two-sign retrogrades differently from the ones contained in a single sign.

Astrologically it is read as a period for revision rather than initiation — reviewing, repairing, finishing what was already started. There is no established physical mechanism by which it affects technology, travel or contracts, and this page makes no such claim. What it gives you is accurate dates and what the tradition says about them.

They are computed, not copied. The stations are found by narrowing down the moment Mercury's apparent motion changes sign, using the same ephemeris behind our birth chart calculator. That matters because most retrograde date lists are transcribed from each other, and a transcription error propagates for years.