Chinese Zodiac Calculator - Free Online Calculator

How to Use

Enter birth year
Input your year of birth.
Calculate
Click the Calculate button to determine your zodiac sign.
View results
See your zodiac animal, the 60-year cycle element, and personality traits.

What Is the Chinese Zodiac?

The Chinese zodiac is a traditional East Asian system that assigns one of twelve animals to each of the twelve Earthly Branches to mark a person's birth year. The animals follow the fixed order of Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, and Pig, repeating in a 12-year cycle.

When these are combined with the 10 Heavenly Stems (Jia, Yi, Bing, Ding, Wu, Ji, Geng, Xin, Ren, Gui), the result is the Sexagenary Cycle, a 60-year cycle that returns to its starting point once every sixty years. This happens because the least common multiple of 10 and 12 is 60, and it is exactly why a person's 60th birthday is traditionally celebrated as completing one full cycle.

The zodiac is widely used in fortune-telling, compatibility, and naming customs. This calculator takes only your birth year and instantly shows your animal sign, your Heavenly Stem, and your full Sexagenary Cycle name.

Calculation Formula

The animal sign and the Heavenly Stem are found from the remainder of the birth year. We subtract 4 because the year 4 AD was a Jia-Zi (甲子) year, the start of the cycle.

Animal (Earthly Branch): (year − 4) mod 12
Heavenly Stem: (year − 4) mod 10

Let's work through 2026 as an example.
Earthly Branch: (2026 − 4) mod 12 = 2022 mod 12 = 6 → Horse (午)
Heavenly Stem: (2026 − 4) mod 10 = 2022 mod 10 = 2 → Bing (丙)
So 2026 is the year Bing-Wu (丙午), the 'Year of the Horse'. Index 0 begins with Rat (子) and Jia (甲).

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the order of the 12 zodiac animals?

The order is Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, and Pig. They repeat in a 12-year cycle.

What is this year's (2026) zodiac sign?

2026 is the Year of the Horse (午). (2026 − 4) mod 12 = 6, which corresponds to the Horse, and with the Heavenly Stem added the full Sexagenary name is Bing-Wu (丙午).

Is the zodiac based on the solar or lunar calendar?

Traditionally the zodiac changes on Lunar New Year. People born in January or February by the solar calendar may belong to the previous lunar year, so if you were born before Lunar New Year you should use the previous year's animal.

Can I also check the Heavenly Stem (Jia, Yi, Bing, Ding...)?

Yes. Along with the 12 zodiac animals, the calculator shows the Sexagenary Cycle name (Jia-Zi, Yi-Chou, etc.) formed by combining the 10 Heavenly Stems. It is a traditional East Asian system of reckoning years that repeats every 60 years.

When will my own zodiac year come around again?

The same animal returns every 12 years. Just add a multiple of 12 to your birth year. For example, if you were born in 2000 (Year of the Dragon), then 2012, 2024, and 2036 are all Dragon years.

Why is the Sexagenary Cycle 60 years long?

Pairing the 10 Heavenly Stems with the 12 Earthly Branches, the first combination (Jia-Zi) returns only at 60, the least common multiple of the two numbers. That is why turning 60 is celebrated as 'Hwangap', meaning one has completed a full cycle.

Why does the formula subtract 4 from the year?

Because the starting point of the Sexagenary Cycle, the Jia-Zi (甲子) year, corresponds to the year 4 AD. After subtracting 4 from the year, the remainders when divided by 12 and 10 give the indexes of the Earthly Branch and Heavenly Stem.

Can the zodiac of a BC year be calculated?

By applying a correction to the modulo operation so that even negative years produce indexes in the 0–11 and 0–9 ranges, the same formula can in theory compute the zodiac of BC years as well.

Updated 2026 pricing

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