How Common Are Retrograde Planets in a Birth Chart?

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Most birth charts carry at least one retrograde planet, and many carry two, three or four. That is a plain consequence of how the planets move as seen from Earth. This page puts numbers on it: how often each planet is retrograde, how the count per chart is spread, and what it means when a chart has none or a great many.

For what the R means, see what a natal retrograde is; for where to find it on your own chart, how to see retrograde on your chart.

How the figures were made: the calculator behind the free birth chart was run for London (51.5074, -0.1278) at 12:00 local clock time on every date from 1 January 1920 to 31 December 2059, 51,135 dates in all, at code version e17516ee. The count covers the eight bodies from Mercury to Pluto. Chiron is reported separately. The Sun and Moon never carry the marker (the concept page explains why), so they are not in the count. The Lunar Nodes are left out too: the site uses the Mean Node, whose backward motion is built into its definition, so it is not a personal retrograde and the chart shows no R on it. Pluto and Chiron are covered on every date in this range. Every percentage below is a share of dates in this sample, not a share of people.

How often each planet is retrograde

The stretch lengths are measured from each calculated station retrograde to the following station direct, for every complete retrograde stretch between December 1919 and January 2061.

Two patterns stand out. The slow planets are retrograde far more often than the fast ones: Pluto and Neptune on more than four dates in ten, Venus on fewer than one in thirteen. And Venus and Mars, despite being close neighbours of Earth, are retrograde less often than Mercury. Each retrograde stretch is tied to a particular line-up of the planet, Earth and the Sun, and Venus and Mars take a long time to come back to that line-up: about 19 months for Venus and about 26 months for Mars, against under four months for Mercury. Retrograde planets and the Sun explains that geometry.

How many retrograde planets a chart has

Counting Mercury through Pluto on each noon chart in the sample:

The average is 2.3. Two or three retrograde planets is the most usual result, and one in twelve dates has none at all.

Adding Chiron as a ninth body moves the spread up a little: 2,475 dates (4.8%) have nothing retrograde, three is now the most common count (25.8%), and four dates reach eight of nine. No date in the sample has all nine.

The personal planets are a different story. Mercury, Venus and Mars are all direct on 34,609 dates (67.7%), one of them is retrograde on 28.9%, two on 3.4%, and all three on just 13 dates (30 April to 8 May 1937 and 15 to 18 December 2037). Most of a chart's R markers usually sit on the slow planets.

Charts with no retrograde planets

Iris is fictional, born in London on 1 March 2023 at 12:00. Her chart shows no R on any planet or on Chiron (the Nodes never show one). She was born inside an 88-day run, from 23 January to 20 April 2023, in which every noon chart in the sample showed Mercury through Pluto all direct.

Such dates come in runs, and the runs cluster in certain decades. For Jupiter through Pluto to be direct, the Sun has to be within roughly 96° to 117° of each one (the figure differs per planet and slightly from year to year), so a chart with nothing retrograde needs the Sun fairly close to every slow planet at once. That is easier when Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are bunched in one part of the zodiac and harder when they are spread around it. In the sample, the 1980s have the most such dates (836), while the 2040s have none and the 2050s only two. The longest runs last 88 days: autumn 1982 into January 1983, autumn 1983, the winter of 1993 to 1994 and early 2023.

A chart with no R is not "smoother" or luckier. It reflects where the slow planets stood in relation to the Sun that season, a pattern shared by everyone born over those weeks.

Charts with many retrograde planets

Tomas is fictional, born in London on 2 May 1984 at 12:00. His chart shows R on Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto: seven of eight, with only Venus direct (Chiron is direct too). That is one of just 12 dates in the sample with seven, in early January 1944, early May 1984 and mid July 1986.

Seven R markers do not add up to a harder life or a "backward" personality. Five of Tomas's seven are slow planets that everyone born in the spring of 1984 shares. The personal part is the Mercury and the Mars, and even those are read through sign, house and aspects first. Natal retrograde myths deals with the idea that more retrogrades means a harder chart; the numbers here only show how ordinary a high count is during some seasons and how impossible it is in others.

Why a count is not a verdict

• Most of the count is shared. Uranus, Neptune and Pluto each stay retrograde for about five months at a stretch, so the slow part of your count is the same as for almost everyone born near you.
• The weight sits elsewhere. A retrograde Mercury in a busy house with strong aspects matters more to a reading than a retrograde Neptune that touches nothing personal. Counting markers ignores that.
• A count is a date fact, not a people fact. The table says how often each count occurs among calendar dates. Births are not spread evenly over the year or the century, so the share of people with a given count is a different number.

Noon, birth times and missing data

These figures use 12:00 on every date. On most dates the time does not matter: a planet's retrograde status only changes at a station. In this sample, at least one of Mercury through Pluto had a station during the London calendar day on 2,495 dates (4.9%), and on those dates the count can differ between morning and evening births. Stationary planets at birth and retrograde planets without a birth time cover what that means.

Outside the date ranges the calculator covers (1920 to 2060 for Chiron, 1885 to 2099 for Pluto), the body is left off the chart rather than shown. A missing Chiron or Pluto is not a direct one, so it should not be counted as "not retrograde". The noon sample above stays inside both ranges.

Putting it to use

Open your free birth chart and count the R markers from Mercury to Pluto, then note Chiron separately. Compare your number with the table, then set the number aside and read each retrograde planet on its own: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto and Chiron. If you would like help weighing them, ask the Astrologist.

Related articles

• What Is a Natal Retrograde?
• Natal Retrograde Myths
• Outer Planets Retrograde
• Retrograde Planets and the Sun
• Outer Planet Signs and Generations