Planetary Transits December 2026: Grah Gochar Dates

In December 2026 it is the slow grahas that move. Rahu and Ketu change sign for the only time in 2026, and two days apart Saturn turns direct and Jupiter turns retrograde. Mercury crosses two sign boundaries and the Sun enters Sagittarius. All of it is below in date order. Dates and times are taken from the site’s ingress table, computed from the JPL DE421 ephemeris in the sidereal zodiac (Lahiri ayanamsa), in Indian Standard Time.

Where the Grahas Stand on 1 December 2026

On the 1st, Saturn is the only graha other than the nodes still moving backwards; Mercury and Venus both turned direct in mid-November. By the last day of the month that has flipped. Jupiter is the retrograde one and Saturn is direct, so the month ends with exactly one retrograde graha again, just not the same one. The nodes have no degree in the table because their positions come from a mean-node formula.

Every Planetary Transit in December 2026, Day by Day

The clock times belong to the fast events only: Mercury’s two sign changes, the Sun’s one, and the new and full Moon. The node shift is a day and nothing finer, and so are Saturn’s and Jupiter’s stations, because a graha standing still has no sharp moment of turning. No two grahas reach the same longitude anywhere in December, so the month has no conjunction row.

Rahu Into Capricorn, Ketu Into Cancer on 5 December

The nodes move together, always into the sign behind. On 5 December 2026 Rahu leaves Aquarius for Capricorn and Ketu leaves Leo for Cancer; Ketu enters Ashlesha nakshatra on the same day. The table’s nodes are mean nodes, an averaged formula and not an observed point, so the date can differ by a day from an almanac that uses the true node. This is the only node shift of 2026. Rahu and Ketu then stay where they are until 24 June 2028, when Rahu moves on into Sagittarius.

With Ketu gone, Leo is left with Mars and Jupiter for the rest of the month. The Rahu-Ketu transit page follows the new stretch through every Moon sign.

Saturn Turns Direct, Then Jupiter Turns Retrograde

Saturn turns direct in Pisces on 11 December 2026, after a retrograde that began on 27 July 2026: 137 days. It then moves forwards through Pisces until it crosses into Aries on 3 June 2027, a date given as a day only because Saturn moves too slowly near that crossing for a minute to mean anything. The Saturn transit 2027 page covers that crossing and its retrograde return.

Two days later, on 13 December 2026, Jupiter turns retrograde in Leo. The retrograde takes it back over the boundary into Cancer, the sign the tables give as its exaltation, on 25 January 2027. It turns direct there on 13 April 2027 and re-enters Leo on 26 June 2027. So the Leo stay that began on 31 October is interrupted, not finished. The Jupiter in Leo page has both visits, and the Jupiter retrograde 2026 page has the station.

Mercury: Scorpio on the 2nd, Sagittarius on the 22nd

Mercury, direct the whole month, enters Scorpio at 17:24 IST on 2 December 2026 and Sagittarius at 07:36 IST on 22 December 2026, which gives it 20 days in Scorpio. On the way it passes through four nakshatras in order: Anuradha, Jyeshtha, Moola and Purva Ashadha. The two sign changes have their own pages: Mercury in Scorpio and Mercury in Sagittarius.

The Sun Enters Sagittarius on 16 December

The Sun moves into Jyeshtha on 3 December, crosses into Sagittarius at 10:20 IST on 16 December 2026, entering Moola at the same moment, and reaches Purva Ashadha on 29 December. In the custom that keeps Kharmas, this entry of the Sun into Sagittarius is what begins it. The Kharmas December 2026 page gives the custom’s dates and the muhurats it closes; this page gives the astronomical crossing only.

Venus and Mars Stay Put

Venus spends all of December in Libra, moving from Chitra into Swati on 5 December and into Vishakha on 22 December. It leaves for Scorpio on 1 January 2027, which the January 2027 grah gochar page lists. Mars stays in Leo all month and moves from Magha into Purva Phalguni on 19 December. It is still moving forwards at the year’s end; its retrograde station comes on 10 January 2027.

The New Moon and the Full Moon

The new Moon is at 06:21 IST on 9 December 2026, in Scorpio and Jyeshtha. The full Moon is at 06:58 IST on 24 December 2026, with the Moon in Gemini and Ardra. Both instants fall early in the morning, so the tithi that a festival rule checks at sunrise can already be the next one on those days. The festival table works that out for each observance, and the December 2026 festival list has the results.

December 2026 Gochar From Your Moon Sign

Each cell is the house a graha occupies counted from the Moon sign in that row, with the Moon sign itself as the 1st. Where a graha changes sign in December the cell shows the houses in order. The Moon sign names link to the December 2026 rashifal for that sign.

Take the Cancer row. Rahu goes from the 8th to the 7th and Ketu from the 2nd to the 1st, which puts Ketu on the Moon sign itself. Mercury runs through the 4th, 5th and 6th, and the Sun moves from the 5th to the 6th. Saturn and Jupiter keep the same house all month even though both change direction, because a station does not change the sign. The Moon’s own count from your Moon sign is Chandra Bala, and the Moon sign calculator finds your Moon sign if you do not know it.

What This Page Does Not Do

It lists the sky and counts houses. It does not say what the node shift, Saturn’s station or Jupiter’s retrograde will do for anyone, and it gives the node shift and the stations as days, never as clock times. The month before is on the November 2026 grah gochar page, and the retrograde planets hub has each graha’s stations year by year.