Venus in the natal chart
In astrology, Venus is linked with affection, pleasure, taste and what a person finds beautiful. Astrologers read the Venus sign for clues about how someone shows care, what draws them to others and how they enjoy comfort and art.
Venus is also associated with values in a broader sense: what feels worth spending time and attention on. That makes it relevant to friendships and personal style as much as to romance.
Why Venus stays close to your Sun
Venus orbits inside Earth's orbit, so from our point of view it never strays far from the Sun. The greatest gap is about 47 degrees, a little more than one and a half signs.
In practice, that means your Venus sign is either your Sun sign or one of the two signs on each side of it. A Leo, for example, can only have Venus in Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo or Libra. If a source places your Venus farther away, something in the calculation is off.
When Venus lingers in one sign
Most of the time Venus moves through a sign in roughly four to five weeks. About every 19 months, though, it turns retrograde for around six weeks, appearing to back up against the stars.
Around a retrograde, Venus can stay in a single sign for about four months. Many people born during that stretch share a Venus sign, and astrologers often read a natal Venus retrograde as affection that is processed inwardly and slowly before it is shown.
The Venus sign table, 1950 to 2030
Below the calculator you will find a table listing every period Venus spent in each sign from 1950 through 2030. We computed each ingress with Astronomy Engine, using UTC dates.
The table is handy for spotting the long retrograde stays, or for checking a whole family at once. If your birthday sits on a date where Venus changed signs, the calculator above with a birth time is the safer way to decide.
Putting Venus in context
Astrologers rarely read Venus alone. Its pairing with Mars is a classic way to compare how someone attracts and how they pursue, so the Mars sign calculator is a natural next step.
For relationships, a synastry chart compares two people's placements side by side. To see Venus among every other planet and house, open your birth chart.