Why Venus seems to move backward
Like Mercury, Venus orbits the Sun inside the Earth's orbit, and it goes retrograde for the same reason: when it swings around the near side of the Sun, passing between the Sun and the Earth, it overtakes us, and for about six weeks its path across the sky runs backward against the stars. Venus is also at its closest to Earth then, which is why it disappears from the evening sky and reappears as the morning star around the middle of the loop.
How often and for how long
Venus turns retrograde about every 19 months, less often than any other planet, and each loop lasts 41 to 43 days. Its shadows are long, too: the whole episode, from the start of the shadow to its end, takes about three and a half months. The station times in the tables are worked out from the site's ephemeris, which agrees with the Swiss Ephemeris within ten minutes for every Venus station from 2000 to 2034.
The eight-year pattern
Venus retrogrades return to nearly the same places every eight years, a day or two earlier in the calendar and two or three degrees further back in the zodiac. The loop of October 3 to November 13, 2026, from 8°29′ Scorpio back to 22°52′ Libra, repeats the loop of October 5 to November 16, 2018, which ran from 10°50′ Scorpio to 25°15′ Libra. Over the eight years Venus traces five loops spaced around the zodiac, the pattern astrologers call the Venus star.
The 2026 retrograde
Venus enters its shadow on August 31, 2026, when it reaches 22°52′ Libra. It turns retrograde on October 3 at 8°29′ Scorpio, backs up to 22°52′ Libra and turns direct on November 13 (November 14 in UTC), then leaves the shadow on December 15, when it passes 8°29′ Scorpio again. The dates on this page are for US Eastern time, and the tables give every moment to the minute in your own time zone.
What astrologers read into it
In astrology Venus rules love, beauty, pleasure, taste and money, so its retrograde is read as a time for looking back rather than forward in those parts of life. People from the past reappear, old questions about a relationship or about what you value come up again, and the traditional advice is to reflect before a new romance, a big purchase or a dramatic change of look. Astrologers present these as readings from tradition, not predictions.
Venus retrograde in your own chart
About one person in thirteen is born with Venus retrograde. Astrologers read it as love and values worked out from the inside: slow to trust, thoughtful about what really matters, and inclined to revisit old relationships. The Venus sign calculator and the birth chart both show whether your Venus was retrograde.