How Chinese Zodiac Years Work

A Chinese zodiac animal belongs to a year, but not to the year printed on a Western wall calendar. The Chinese year opens at the new moon that falls somewhere between 21 January and 20 February, so a birthday in early January, or in the first fortnight of February, usually carries the animal of the year before. Someone born in January 2025 and told they are a Snake has been handed the wrong animal: the Snake year did not begin until the end of that month, and until then it was still the Dragon.

The twelve animals and a year for each

The order never varies and the run never breaks. Each animal below is shown with one recent year it governs. Add or subtract twelve, or any multiple of twelve, to reach the rest.

• Rat. 2020
• Ox. 2021
• Tiger. 2022
• Rabbit. 2023
• Dragon. 2024
• Snake. 2025
• Horse. 2026
• Goat. 2027
• Monkey. 2028
• Rooster. 2029
• Dog. 2030
• Pig. 2031

Every year in that list starts at Chinese New Year, which is the one correction that catches most people out. You will also see the Goat called the Sheep or the Ram, and the Pig called the Boar, because the Chinese words cover animals that English insists on separating.

Why the year turns in late winter

The Chinese calendar is lunisolar, meaning it counts its months by the Moon and keeps its years in step with the Sun. A month opens on the day of a new moon, when the Moon passes between us and the Sun and shows no lit face, and runs twenty-nine or thirty days until the next one. Twelve of those months come to roughly 354 days, about eleven short of a solar year.

Left uncorrected, that shortfall would drag New Year backwards through the seasons within a decade. So a thirteenth month is inserted instead, seven times in every nineteen years, which pins the count back to the Sun. The side effect is that New Year cannot settle on a fixed date and instead wanders across a window of about a month.

One further wrinkle is worth knowing. Astrologers working with full Chinese birth charts often begin the animal year at lichun, the traditional first day of spring around 4 February, rather than at New Year itself. For a birthday in the opening days of February the two conventions can hand you different animals, and neither of them is a mistake.

The element that rides with the animal

Each year also carries one of five elements: wood, fire, earth, metal and water. An element holds for two years running before the next takes over, so twelve animals against five elements give sixty distinct combinations before the whole sequence starts again. A Wood Dragon or a Metal Rat comes round once in sixty years, which is why a sixtieth birthday has been treated as a milestone for so long.

The final digit of the Western year gives the element, as long as the birthday falls after New Year: 0 and 1 are metal, 2 and 3 water, 4 and 5 wood, 6 and 7 fire, 8 and 9 earth. On that rule 2024 was a Wood Dragon year and 2026 a Fire Horse year.

Every year is also either yang, the active pole of the old Chinese pair of opposites, or yin, the receptive one, and the two alternate without exception. Since the animals sit in a fixed order, the pairing is permanent: Rat, Tiger, Dragon, Horse, Monkey and Dog years are always yang, while Ox, Rabbit, Snake, Goat, Rooster and Pig years are always yin. Formally the sixty-year run is built by matching ten heavenly stems, which are the five elements in yang and yin form, against twelve earthly branches, which are the animals.

What the animals are said to mean

An animal carries a reputation rather than a forecast. The Ox is read as patient and immovable, the Monkey as quick and mischievous, the Snake as private and shrewd, the Horse as restless and sociable. These are characterisations handed down through stories and printed almanacs, not findings, and they are best read the way you would read any inherited description of temperament: as a lens that sometimes fits and sometimes does not.

Compatibility in this tradition follows a simple geometry. Animals four places apart are held to suit each other, which produces four friendly triples: Rat with Dragon and Monkey, Ox with Snake and Rooster, Tiger with Horse and Dog, Rabbit with Goat and Pig. Animals directly across the circle, six places apart, are held to clash, setting Rat against Horse, Ox against Goat, Tiger against Monkey, Rabbit against Rooster, Dragon against Dog and Snake against Pig.

The year your own animal comes back

Your animal governs again every twelfth year, so at twelve, twenty-four, thirty-six and onwards. Chinese custom calls this benmingnian and treats it as an unsettled stretch rather than a fortunate one, on the reasoning that standing directly under your own sign attracts attention you might rather do without.

The customary remedy is red. A red belt, red socks or red underclothes, worn through the year and ideally given by somebody else rather than bought for yourself. It is a tradition observed in much the same spirit as touching wood, and it is followed by plenty of people who would not claim to believe a word of it.

You have more than one animal

The year animal is only the first of four. A full traditional reading, known as bazi or the four pillars, assigns an animal and an element to the year, the month, the day and the two-hour block of birth. The day pillar is often treated as the one that describes the person most closely, which is part of why a year animal on its own can feel like a poor fit.

The hour animal moves fastest of all. The Chinese day splits into twelve blocks of two hours, each ruled by one animal in the usual order, starting with the hour of the Rat from eleven at night until one in the morning. Popular writing labels the month animal the inner animal and the hour animal the secret one. Working any of these out needs a full birth date rather than just a year, and the hour needs a birth time as well.