Rising Sign Table: Which Sign Rises at What Time?

The rising sign, also called the ascendant, is the zodiac sign on the eastern horizon at the moment you were born. Each table gives the clock time that every sign starts to rise, and a sign stays the ascendant until the next one begins.

The Earth turns once a day, so all twelve signs pass over the horizon in turn within 24 hours.

The times are local clock times in 24-hour format for 2026. January is winter time (GMT, EST, PST) and April, July and October are summer time (BST, EDT, PDT) in all three cities. We also ran the same dates for other years from 2024 to 2028 for London, and no start time moved by more than three minutes. The tables are a good guide for those years. When you need the exact minute, use the calculator.

The rule is short. Find your city and your date, then look for the last start time before your birth time. The sign in that row is your rising sign. Take a birth in London at 4:30 p.m. on 15 January. Cancer starts at 14:09 and Leo at 16:39, so 16:30 falls between them and the ascendant is Cancer. For a birth at 00:30 the same night, the day has not started a new sign yet: Libra began at about 22:23 on the evening before, so it is still up.

Two more examples. In New York on 15 April, a birth at 7:30 a.m. falls between Taurus at 06:34 and Gemini at 08:00, so it is Taurus. In Los Angeles on 15 October, a birth at 7:30 p.m. falls between Taurus at 18:35 and Gemini at 20:09, so it is Taurus again. All three examples sit comfortably between two start times. A birth within about ten minutes of a start time is a case to double check.

The minutes column shows how long each sign stays on the horizon. It depends on the latitude of the city and stays nearly the same through the year. The four date columns give the start time of the sign on that day.

London

New York

Los Angeles

The cities differ because of longitude and latitude. Longitude moves every clock time: New York is about 74 degrees west of Greenwich, Los Angeles about 118 degrees, and each degree is about four minutes of sidereal time. Latitude changes the minutes column, and that is why the three tables look so different from each other. So you cannot turn one city's table into another's by adding minutes.

The signs are not equal in length, so twelve signs do not divide the day into twelve slices of two hours. The reason is the angle at which each sign crosses the horizon, covered below. In London, by our calculation, Aries and Pisces last about 52 minutes, Taurus and Aquarius 68 to 69, Gemini and Capricorn 106 to 107, Cancer and Sagittarius 150 to 151, and Leo, Virgo, Libra and Scorpio between 169 and 171. Libra stays up more than three times as long as Aries.

That has a clear effect on how common each ascendant is. If births were spread evenly across the day, about 4 percent of the people born in London would have Aries rising and about 12 percent Libra. Real births are not spread evenly, but the difference in time explains why some rising signs turn up more often in a chart collection than others. Six signs, Capricorn through Gemini, fill only about seven and a half hours of the day in London, and the other six fill about sixteen and a half.

The cause is geometry. The ecliptic, the path of the Sun through the sky and the line along which the signs are laid out, crosses the eastern horizon at an angle. When Aries rises, the ecliptic meets the horizon at a shallow angle, the point where it crosses slides quickly along the ecliptic and the sign is gone fast. When Libra rises, the angle is steep, the crossing point moves slowly and the sign stays. The farther from the equator you are, the stronger this effect gets. Near the equator every sign takes close to two hours.

New York and Los Angeles minutes

Moving south evens the signs out. In New York Aries and Pisces last 71 to 72 minutes and Leo 152 to 153. In Los Angeles Aries lasts 79 to 80 minutes and Leo 145 to 146. Aries gains about 27 minutes from London to Los Angeles, while Leo and Libra lose 24 to 28. The order of the signs stays the same in all three cities.

A rising sign table gets close for most people, since it shows which sign belongs to which clock time. Its limits are birth time precision, date coverage and the clock, and each one matters only when your birth time is near the edge of a sign.

The first is the precision of the birth time. In London the ascendant moves one degree in roughly 1.75 minutes while Aries rises, and in about 5.7 minutes while Libra does. A birth time that is off by ten minutes can change the sign when it sits near a boundary, and hardly ever does so in the middle. If the time on the certificate is remembered as "around noon" or "in the evening", the table can show you which signs fit.

The second is the coverage. The tables list the 15th of four months for three cities. A day later every start time falls about four minutes earlier, and after two weeks about an hour earlier. For other dates you would have to shift the rows yourself, and a small slip changes the sign.

The third is the clock. Daylight saving rules have changed over the decades in the United Kingdom and the United States, and records from earlier years can use a different offset than today. The calculator applies the time zone record of the birth place and date. By hand you would have to look it up.

A table can suggest the sign, and the degree needs the calculator. The degree matters because it decides where the houses begin, which shifts every house position in your birth chart. The houses guide explains how that works.

Each of the twelve signs has its own post with its own character, rising times and rulers:

• Aries rising: one of the two shortest windows, ruled by Mars
• Taurus rising: calm and steady, ruled by Venus
• Gemini rising: curious and talkative, ruled by Mercury
• Cancer rising: gentle and protective, ruled by the Moon
• Leo rising: warm and confident, one of the longest windows, ruled by the Sun
• Virgo rising: neat and observant, ruled by Mercury
• Libra rising: charming and tactful, ruled by Venus
• Scorpio rising: private and watchful, ruled by Mars and Pluto
• Sagittarius rising: open and adventurous, ruled by Jupiter
• Capricorn rising: composed and capable, ruled by Saturn
• Aquarius rising: cool and original, ruled by Saturn and Uranus
• Pisces rising: soft and dreamy, one of the shortest windows, ruled by Jupiter and Neptune

For the general meaning of the placement, see the rising sign guide and your rising sign explained. The emotional side is covered in what your Moon sign means, and for how each ascendant tends to look, read rising sign and your appearance.

You need three things: the date, the exact time and the place of birth. Enter them into the rising sign calculator. It applies the time zone and daylight saving record of the birth place and date, and gives your ascendant with its degree. If you do not know the time, look at the birth certificate, ask the hospital for the record or ask a parent. If you only know it roughly, use the table to see which signs fit that stretch of the day and keep in mind that your ascendant could be one of several.