Sagittarius is Jupiter’s own sign. Ptolemy gave it to the planet in the second century, and William Lilly called it Jupiter’s day house in 1647. So you would expect the planet to turn up here for anyone born under the sign of the Archer. It does, but only for about one Sagittarius Sun in ten.
This page asks a sharper question. If you know your Sun sign, what are the odds that your Jupiter sits in Sagittarius? The answer is not the same for everyone. For a Sagittarius Sun it is 10.22 percent. For a Gemini Sun it is 6.95 percent, the lowest of the twelve. That gap is the thesis of this page. The reason for it is a loop in the sky that comes every year, right when the Sun is in Gemini.
I measured it over 67 full laps of Jupiter round the zodiac, from 1607 to 2402. Then I checked it against the planet tables of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The method is at the end, so you can check it too. First, the part most people come for: the dates.
Do you have Jupiter in Sagittarius? Every visit from 1910 to 2100
Your Jupiter sign is the sign the planet stood in at the moment you were born. It changes about once a year, so it goes by birth year more than by birthday. Jupiter comes back to Sagittarius about every twelve years.
Most visits are one clean run of about a year and three weeks. Some are cut into three pieces by retrograde motion. Retrograde means the planet seems to slide backward against the stars for about four months. Nothing turns round in space. Earth, on the inside lane, passes Jupiter, the way a slow car seems to drift back as you overtake it. When that backward slide falls near the edge of the sign, Jupiter steps out and comes back.
The table lists each stretch with Jupiter in Sagittarius. The second and third columns are in UTC, the world clock that astronomers use. The last column gives the same moments on the New York clock, with EST for winter time and EDT for summer time. All times are rounded to the minute.
| Visit | Jupiter enters Sagittarius, in UTC | Jupiter leaves Sagittarius, in UTC | The same moments in New York. |
| 1911 to 1913 | 10 Dec 1911, 11:35 | 2 Jan 1913, 19:45 | 10 Dec, 6:35 am EST to 2 Jan, 2:45 pm EST. |
| 1923 to 1924 | 24 Nov 1923, 17:31 | 18 Dec 1924, 06:25 | 24 Nov, 12:31 pm EST to 18 Dec, 1:25 am EST. |
| 1935 to 1936 | 9 Nov 1935, 02:56 | 2 Dec 1936, 08:39 | 8 Nov, 9:56 pm EST to 2 Dec, 3:39 am EST. |
| 1947 to 1948 | 24 Oct 1947, 03:00 | 15 Nov 1948, 10:38 | 23 Oct, 10:00 pm EST to 15 Nov, 5:38 am EST. |
| 1959 to 1960, part 1 of 3 | 10 Feb 1959, 13:45 | 24 Apr 1959, 14:11 | 10 Feb, 8:45 am EST to 24 Apr, 9:11 am EST. |
| 1959 to 1960, part 2 of 3 | 5 Oct 1959, 14:39 | 1 Mar 1960, 13:10 | 5 Oct, 10:39 am EDT to 1 Mar, 8:10 am EST. |
| 1959 to 1960, part 3 of 3 | 10 Jun 1960, 01:53 | 26 Oct 1960, 03:01 | 9 Jun, 9:53 pm EDT to 25 Oct, 11:01 pm EDT. |
| 1971 to 1972, part 1 of 3 | 14 Jan 1971, 08:49 | 5 Jun 1971, 02:12 | 14 Jan, 3:49 am EST to 4 Jun, 10:12 pm EDT. |
| 1971 to 1972, part 2 of 3 | 11 Sep 1971, 15:33 | 6 Feb 1972, 19:37 | 11 Sep, 11:33 am EDT to 6 Feb, 2:37 pm EST. |
| 1971 to 1972, part 3 of 3 | 24 Jul 1972, 16:42 | 25 Sep 1972, 18:19 | 24 Jul, 12:42 pm EDT to 25 Sep, 2:19 pm EDT. |
| 1982 to 1984 | 26 Dec 1982, 01:57 | 19 Jan 1984, 15:04 | 25 Dec, 8:57 pm EST to 19 Jan, 10:04 am EST. |
| 1994 to 1996 | 9 Dec 1994, 10:54 | 3 Jan 1996, 07:22 | 9 Dec, 5:54 am EST to 3 Jan, 2:22 am EST. |
| 2006 to 2007 | 24 Nov 2006, 04:43 | 18 Dec 2007, 20:11 | 23 Nov, 11:43 pm EST to 18 Dec, 3:11 pm EST. |
| 2018 to 2019 | 8 Nov 2018, 12:39 | 2 Dec 2019, 18:20 | 8 Nov, 7:39 am EST to 2 Dec, 1:20 pm EST. |
| 2030 to 2031 | 22 Oct 2030, 23:14 | 15 Nov 2031, 10:30 | 22 Oct, 7:14 pm EDT to 15 Nov, 5:30 am EST. |
| 2042 to 2043, part 1 of 3 | 8 Feb 2042, 23:53 | 24 Apr 2042, 12:41 | 8 Feb, 6:53 pm EST to 24 Apr, 8:41 am EDT. |
| 2042 to 2043, part 2 of 3 | 4 Oct 2042, 09:59 | 1 Mar 2043, 17:06 | 4 Oct, 5:59 am EDT to 1 Mar, 12:06 pm EST. |
| 2042 to 2043, part 3 of 3 | 9 Jun 2043, 21:42 | 26 Oct 2043, 11:31 | 9 Jun, 5:42 pm EDT to 26 Oct, 7:31 am EDT. |
| 2054 to 2055, part 1 of 3 | 13 Jan 2054, 07:59 | 4 Jun 2054, 06:27 | 13 Jan, 2:59 am EST to 4 Jun, 2:27 am EDT. |
| 2054 to 2055, part 2 of 3 | 10 Sep 2054, 18:30 | 6 Feb 2055, 08:36 | 10 Sep, 2:30 pm EDT to 6 Feb, 3:36 am EST. |
| 2054 to 2055, part 3 of 3 | 23 Jul 2055, 04:37 | 27 Sep 2055, 06:03 | 23 Jul, 12:37 am EDT to 27 Sep, 2:03 am EDT. |
| 2065 to 2067 | 25 Dec 2065, 16:54 | 19 Jan 2067, 09:28 | 25 Dec, 11:54 am EST to 19 Jan, 4:28 am EST. |
| 2077 to 2079 | 8 Dec 2077, 23:30 | 2 Jan 2079, 19:56 | 8 Dec, 6:30 pm EST to 2 Jan, 2:56 pm EST. |
| 2089 to 2090 | 23 Nov 2089, 02:48 | 17 Dec 2090, 20:51 | 22 Nov, 9:48 pm EST to 17 Dec, 3:51 pm EST. |
A split visit leaves gaps. In the gaps, Jupiter is back in Scorpio or already in Capricorn. So a baby born in the spring of 1971 has Jupiter in Sagittarius, and a baby born that July does not. If your birth falls within a day of a change, check your chart with your exact time and place.
You can see the start dates drift. Within a run of clean visits, each one begins about two weeks earlier in the year than the one before. Our guide to the Sagittarius sign lists the recent start dates and what they mean for an Archer’s age now.
The last visit and the next one
The last visit was a clean run. Jupiter entered Sagittarius on 8 November 2018 at 12:39 UTC, which was 7:39 am in New York. It left on 2 December 2019 at 18:20 UTC, or 1:20 pm in New York. That is 389 days in the sign.
Inside that year, Jupiter made one full loop. It stopped and turned backward on 10 April 2019, near 16:54 UTC, at 24 degrees 21 minutes of Sagittarius. It stopped again and turned forward on 11 August 2019, near 13:38 UTC, at 14 degrees 30 minutes. Astrologers call those two turning points stations. Both fell inside the sign, so the loop never pushed Jupiter out.
The next visit is clean too. Jupiter enters Sagittarius on 22 October 2030 at 23:14 UTC. In New York that is 7:14 pm EDT on the same day. It turns backward on 15 April 2031, near 11:57 UTC, at 28 degrees 59 minutes. That is one degree short of the edge, and it is close enough to watch. It turns forward on 16 August 2031, near 04:57 UTC, at 19 degrees 9 minutes. In New York that second turn falls just before 1 am on 16 August. Jupiter leaves for Capricorn on 15 November 2031 at 10:30 UTC, or 5:30 am EST.
After that, the pattern turns. The visits of 2042 and 2054 come in three pieces each. The same thing happened in 1959 and 1971, exactly 83 years earlier. Seven laps of Jupiter take about 83 years, so the sky nearly repeats its layout on that beat.
Your Sun sign changes the odds
Here is the main result. For each Sun sign, the table gives the share of birth moments that also have Jupiter in Sagittarius. It counts every moment the same, with no weight for the hour or the season when more babies are born.
| Your Sun sign | Chance your Jupiter is in Sagittarius, over 67 full laps of Jupiter, 1607 to 2402. |
| Sagittarius | 10.22 percent, the highest. |
| Capricorn | 10.19 percent. |
| Scorpio | 10.04 percent. |
| Aquarius | 9.52 percent. |
| Libra | 9.37 percent. |
| Pisces | 8.91 percent. |
| Virgo | 8.90 percent. |
| Aries | 8.42 percent. |
| Leo | 8.39 percent. |
| Taurus | 7.33 percent. |
| Cancer | 7.19 percent. |
| Gemini | 6.95 percent, the lowest. |
The top figure is not new on this site. Our guide to the Sagittarius sign gives the same 10.22 percent for Archers whose ruler is at home. What is new is the rest of the list. A Sagittarius Sun is about one and a half times as likely as a Gemini Sun to have Jupiter in Sagittarius. That is one chart in ten against one chart in fourteen.
Across all moments, with no Sun sign chosen, Jupiter sits in Sagittarius 8.76 percent of the time. Our page on the Moon in Sagittarius gives the same figure. Keep the two kinds of number apart. One asks what share of all time Jupiter spends in the sign. The other asks what share of people with one Sun sign have it there.
Why Gemini Suns get it least
Earth passes Jupiter once a year. At that moment the Sun, the Earth and Jupiter stand in a line, with Earth in the middle. Astrologers call this the opposition, because the Sun and Jupiter face each other across the sky. The opposition sits in the middle of the backward loop.
When Jupiter is in Sagittarius, the Sun must stand in the sign across from it to make that line. The sign across from Sagittarius is Gemini. So each year of a Sagittarius visit, the backward loop peaks while the Sun is in Gemini.
In a clean visit, the whole loop stays inside Sagittarius. Every Sun sign then gets its month with Jupiter in the sign, and Gemini gets about 31 days, like the rest.
In a split visit, the loop falls on the edge of the sign. It carries Jupiter back into Scorpio, or it keeps Jupiter in Capricorn for most of the Gemini month. Either way, the Gemini month is the one that gets cut. In the 20 split visits, the Gemini Sun got about 13 days with Jupiter in Sagittarius, against 31 in a clean visit. Taurus and Cancer, on each side of Gemini, lose most of their share too.
Three visits in ten are split. That is enough to pull Gemini to the bottom of the table.
Why Scorpio, Sagittarius and Capricorn Suns get it most
A clean visit lasts about 389 days. A year is 365 days. So each clean visit gives one Sun sign, or two, a second helping. The extra time goes to the Sun signs around the date of entry and exit.
Take the 47 clean visits. Jupiter entered Sagittarius with the Sun in Libra 7 times and in Scorpio 12 times. It entered with the Sun in Sagittarius 18 times and in Capricorn 10 times. It never entered in any other month. Those are the Sun signs that get the extra days. That is why the top three are the Archer and its two neighbors.
There is a reason the entry lands there. Jupiter moves forward fastest when it sits on the far side of the Sun. It then crosses into a new sign with the Sun close by. So at entry, the Sun is never more than two signs away from Sagittarius.
Home, but only its fourth-longest stay
Many readers assume a planet lingers in its own sign. Jupiter does not. It spends about 380 days per lap in Sagittarius. It spends about 396 days in Libra, 393 in Virgo and 391 in Scorpio. So its home is only its fourth-longest stay. Our guide to Jupiter in astrology gives the full list.
The cause is the shape of Jupiter’s path. The orbit is a slightly stretched ring. Jupiter’s farthest point from the Sun is called aphelion. Seen from the Sun, it now lies near 15 degrees of Libra, at about 5.45 times Earth’s distance from the Sun. There, Jupiter moves slowest, so Libra wins. Sagittarius sits about two signs past that point, where the planet has already picked up speed. Our page on Jupiter in Libra works through that slow stretch in full.
So the tradition and the clock say different things. The tradition says Jupiter is strongest here. The clock says it passes through a little faster than it does in Libra. Both can be true. Strength in the old books was never a matter of time spent.
Three in ten are born with it retrograde
Of all the moments Jupiter spends in Sagittarius, it is moving backward in 31.2 percent of them. So about three people in ten with Jupiter in Sagittarius have it retrograde in their chart. Across all signs, our Jupiter guide puts the share at 30.3 percent.
Every one of the 67 visits held at least one backward loop. None slipped through without one. In a clean visit, the loop sits in the middle of the stay, from April to August in recent visits. So a birthday in those months is the most likely to carry a retrograde Jupiter in Sagittarius.
How I measured it
Route one used the free astronomy-engine code library. I found the exact moment of every sign change of Jupiter from 1600 to 2410. For each change I cut the time in half, again and again, until the moment was pinned to under a second. I then did the same for the Sun’s sign changes. The window starts as Jupiter enters Aries in 1607 and ends as it enters Aries again in 2402. It holds exactly 67 laps, so no sign gets a spare part of a lap. I added up the time when Jupiter was in Sagittarius, sorted by the Sun’s sign at that moment. I did not use random draws.
Route two used JPL Horizons, the planet tables of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Those tables serve Jupiter from 1600 to 2200 only. So I took one position of Jupiter and one of the Sun for each day across 49 full laps, from 1607 to 2188. That is 212,224 days. The share of time in Sagittarius came out at 8.759 percent, against 8.758 percent by route one over the same laps. The chance by Sun sign agreed within 0.05 of a point for every sign. The Gemini figure was 6.95 percent by JPL and 6.99 percent by route one on those 49 laps.
I checked each entry and exit in the visit table against JPL at a one-minute step. The forward crossings agreed within 10 minutes. The slow crossings near a turning point differed by up to 31 minutes, and the table uses the JPL times. Longitudes are tropical, measured from the spring equinox point.
Jupiter at home: what the old books say
In the Tetrabiblos, Ptolemy hands out the signs in two halves. The Sun rules the half that runs from Leo on, and the Moon rules the half before it. Each planet gets one sign in each half. Jupiter gets Sagittarius on the Sun’s side and Pisces on the Moon’s side.
William Lilly, in Christian Astrology in 1647, puts this in a table. He marks Sagittarius as Jupiter’s day house and Pisces as its night house. Chris Brennan explains why that fits. In his book Hellenistic Astrology, he sets out the old split of planets into a day team and a night team. Jupiter belongs to the day team. So its day house is the one that suits its own side.
Vettius Valens gives Jupiter more in this sign. In the system of bounds, each sign is cut into five slices, each owned by a planet. In Sagittarius, the first 12 degrees belong to Jupiter. Jupiter also rules the three fire signs by night, in Ptolemy and in Valens. So a Jupiter in the early degrees of Sagittarius holds three kinds of rule at once.
Two more rules help you read the sign. Jupiter’s exaltation, its place of honor, is Cancer. Its fall, the place of least ease, is Capricorn, the next sign on. Mercury is in detriment in Sagittarius, because Mercury rules Gemini across the way. None of these rules change the time Jupiter spends here. They only change how the tradition reads it.
What the placement means
Think of a traveler with a map and an open heart. That image fits Jupiter in Sagittarius. Sagittarius gives direction and a hunger to know. Jupiter adds trust and a wide hand. Together they make someone who looks for meaning and says what they think.
Robert Hand, writing on Jupiter, stresses growth and the reach for a bigger view. Liz Greene links the planet to the search for a sense that life means something. Stephen Arroyo puts it as the urge to go beyond yourself. Demetra George, working from the Greek texts, reads Jupiter as the planet that gives. In this sign, those threads pull the same way.
People with this placement learn by doing. They trust a hunch about a person or a place. They bounce back fast from a knock. Many are drawn to teaching, travel, law, books or work across cultures. At their best they lift a room with a big idea. At their worst they promise more than they can give, or skip the small print.
In love, this Jupiter wants honesty, room to move and a partner who likes to learn. Blunt words can hurt a soft heart, so tact is the skill to build. A shared trip or a long talk late at night does more for the bond than a quiet night in.
The growth edge is the same in work and in love. Pair the vision with a plan. Break a big goal into weekly steps. Check the facts before you share the view.
Reading your own Jupiter in Sagittarius
The sign is only one layer. The house shows where the growth lands. Your chart splits the sky into twelve houses, each one a part of life, such as home, work or friends. In the ninth house, the house of travel and belief, Jupiter doubles down on its own themes. In the second house, it turns toward money and what you value.
Aspects add the rest. An aspect is an angle between two planets that ties their themes together. Jupiter near Mercury speeds up ideas and talk. Jupiter at a hard angle to Saturn asks the dream to meet a deadline. Jupiter with Venus looks for beauty and culture. Read the whole chart to see whether Jupiter’s reach finds a frame or spreads thin.
When both partners have Venus in Sagittarius, Jupiter hosts the pair twice, as Venus in Sagittarius and Venus in Sagittarius compatibility explains.
The two planets rule a pair of Sun signs 60 degrees apart, and our page on Libra and Sagittarius compatibility looks at that pair.
If you were born with a Gemini Sun and still have Jupiter in Sagittarius, you hold the rarest mix on the list above. Your Sun and your Jupiter face each other across the sky. The tradition reads that as a pull between the facts in front of you and the big picture beyond them.
The signs next door
One sign back sits Jupiter in Scorpio. There, the same hunger for more turns inward and grows intense. Jupiter spends almost as long there as in Libra.
Jupiter shares this sign with slower guests. From 1995 to 2008, the planet of deep change passed through it too. See what Pluto in Sagittarius did to the same sign in those years.
Frequently asked questions
When was Jupiter last in Sagittarius?
From 8 November 2018 at 12:39 UTC to 2 December 2019 at 18:20 UTC. In New York, that runs from 7:39 am EST on 8 November 2018 to 1:20 pm EST on 2 December 2019. It was one clean run of 389 days.
When does Jupiter return to Sagittarius?
On 22 October 2030 at 23:14 UTC, or 7:14 pm EDT in New York. It stays until 15 November 2031 at 10:30 UTC, in one clean run.
How long does Jupiter stay in Sagittarius?
A clean visit lasts from 387 to 391 days. A split visit gives the sign from 348 to 367 days, added over three pieces. Over 67 full laps of Jupiter, 1607 to 2402, the mean is about 380 days per lap.
Is Jupiter in Sagittarius rare?
Not very. Jupiter spends 8.76 percent of its time here, a bit above a fair share of 8.33 percent. It is rarer for some Sun signs than others: 10.22 percent of Sagittarius Suns have it, against 6.95 percent of Gemini Suns.
Is Jupiter strong in Sagittarius?
By the old rules, yes. It is Jupiter’s own sign and its day house. In its first 12 degrees, Jupiter owns the bounds as well.
I was born in the summer of 1972. Do I have Jupiter in Sagittarius?
Only if you were born from 24 July to 25 September 1972. Before and after that stretch, Jupiter was in Capricorn. Check the exact hour if your birthday falls on one of those two dates.
Go deeper with your personal Astrovision report
Dates are a start. Your chart is the rest. An Astrovision report reads your Jupiter with its sign, its house, its turning points and the planets it meets. It comes as a written guide and as a personal podcast you can play on a walk.