What Is My Mars Sign? Vedic Dates by Birth Year 1950–2050

Mars changes sign far less often than Mercury or Venus: between 4 and 9 times in a calendar year, with a median stay of about 45 days. So for the great majority of birthdays the Mars sign follows from the date alone. Below is every sidereal sign Mars entered from 1950 to 2050, one row per year, with the date in IST. Pick your birth year and take the last sign entered on or before your birthday; if the birthday comes before the first entry in the row, the answer is the sign in the second column.

The signs are Vedic (Mangal’s rashi, Lahiri ayanamsa). A western, tropical Mars sign sits 23.1° to 24.6° further along over these years, which is less than a sign, so it is always this sign or the one after it. Mars is in Cancer as this is published and enters Leo on 12 November 2026.

Mars Is Not Tied to Your Sun Sign

Unlike the two inner grahas, Mars orbits outside the Earth’s orbit and can stand anywhere relative to the Sun, so knowing the Sun sign does not narrow the Mars sign much. Reading both at noon IST on the 36,890 days of the century, here is how far the Mars sign sat from the Sun sign:

Every distance occurs, and the share for any single sign falls with each step away from the Sun’s (the middle rows count both sides): Mars was in the Sun’s own sign on 13.7% of days and in the sign opposite on only 3.0%. The reason is in the motion. On the far side of its orbit Mars moves forward at nearly the Sun’s own pace, so the two stay close for months on end; Mars is opposite the Sun only around its retrogrades, which come about once in twenty-six months.

Six Weeks Is Normal; Seven Months Happens

Mars turns retrograde for about eleven weeks at a time, roughly every twenty-six months. When that loop sits inside one sign, Mars can stay there for six months or more. The century has 16 stays of 200 days or longer:

The longest is Leo from 6 November 1979 to 29 June 1980, 236 days. The two in the years of the site’s retrograde table, Virgo from 2028 and Libra from 2031, each contain that table’s whole retrograde window for the year. When the loop crosses a boundary the result is a short visit instead; the shortest stay of the century is Pisces from 3 August to 18 August 1956, about 15 days. Across the century the count of entries in a calendar year runs from 4, in 1954, 1969, 1982, 1988, 2029, 2033 and 2048, to 9, in 1964, 1968, 1983, 1992, 2015 and 2043.

Births From November 2026 to July 2027

The coming months show the pattern. Mars enters Leo on 12 November 2026, turns retrograde on 10 January 2027, and slips back into Cancer between 9 March and 10 March 2027 (the entry falls close to midnight IST). It turns direct on 1 April, re-enters Leo on 26 April and reaches Virgo on 5 July 2027. A child born between 12 November 2026 and that March entry has Mars in Leo; from the March entry until 26 April, in Cancer; and from then until 5 July, in Leo again. Births on the change dates themselves need the hour. The Leo entry itself is covered on the Mars transit in Leo 2026 page.

The 15-, 32-, 47- and 79-Year Echoes

Two years apart, the same calendar date gives the same Mars sign on only 35.8% of dates. Mars returns close to its old place on the same date at longer intervals: 70.0% after 15 years, 83.7% after 32, 86.2% after 47, and 96.6% after 79, while 17 years apart gives only 55.9%. So the closest match to any row is the row 79 years before it, which this table holds for every birth year from 2029 on.

Mars Sign by Year, 1950 to 2050

IST dates. Entries marked “(R)” are made while Mars is retrograde, back into the sign it had just left. A dashed pair of dates is an entry so close to midnight that the day cannot be fixed. The 692 entries come from a scan of the JPL DE421 ephemeris that reproduces the 150 entries of the site’s 2026–2028 ingress table to the minute.

Mars Sign, Mars House and Mangal Dosha

Mars changes sign on 692 dates in these 101 years, and 29 of those entries are printed as spans. For a birth on any of those 692 dates, the hour decides. The free kundli (it asks you to sign in first) gives Mars’s sign and degree for the date and time you enter and, with a birthplace, the house it falls in from your lagna. Mangal dosha is read from that house, not from the sign: the site’s Mangal dosha checker counts it from the lagna, the Moon and Venus, and needs the birth time for the lagna. A Mars sign from this table cannot tell you whether a chart is manglik. The Janam Kundli report places Mars together with the other visible grahas.

Mars in Each Sign

For Mars’s dignity in the sign you found, the signs it aspects from there and the padas it crosses, open the placement page: Mars in Aries, Mars in Taurus, Mars in Gemini, Mars in Cancer, Mars in Leo, Mars in Virgo, Mars in Libra, Mars in Scorpio, Mars in Sagittarius, Mars in Capricorn, Mars in Aquarius and Mars in Pisces. The graha itself is described on the Mangal page, and the shortest and longest stays of 2026 to 2028 for all nine grahas are on how long each planet stays in a sign.

Not on This Page

Entry times: the table carries dates only. A list of western Mars dates. Any reading of what Mars in a sign means for temperament, energy or marriage. Every sign is computed with the Lahiri ayanamsa, and an almanac using another can differ by a day at a boundary.

At a Glance

• Entries a year: 4 to 9; median stay about 45 days
• Long stays: 16 of 200 days or more, the longest 236 days in Leo
• Any sign relative to the Sun: the same sign on 13.7% of days, the opposite on 3.0%
• Next: Leo from 12 November 2026, back to Cancer 9–10 Mar to 26 April 2027
• Mangal dosha: read from Mars’s house, which needs a birth time; the sign alone does not decide it