Saturn was last in Scorpio from 5 October 2012 to 23 December 2014. It then came back for a short second pass, from 15 June to 18 September 2015. Those are the dates in UTC, the world clock. The next stay starts on 11 November 2041 and ends on 31 October 2044.
Those two stays are not the same length, and the gap is the point of this page. I traced every visit Saturn made to Scorpio from 1600 to 2400. There were 28. The 2012 stay gave Scorpio 904 days, the fourth shortest of the 28. The 2041 stay will give it 1,029 days, the second longest. The rest of this page shows why, with every date you need to check your own chart.
Were you born with Saturn in Scorpio?
Saturn is the slow ringed planet that astrologers link to time, limits and hard lessons. It takes about 29 and a half years to go once around the zodiac, the belt of twelve signs. So it comes back to Scorpio about once every 29 years, and each group of people born during a visit shares the placement.
Here are the four groups alive today. Each line gives the start and end of a slice of time with Saturn inside the sign. The New York times matter because a crossing late in the evening in the United States is already the next day in UTC.
| Group | Saturn in Scorpio, UTC | Same moments, New York time |
|---|---|---|
| Born 1923 to 1926. | 20 December 1923, 04:25, to 6 April 1924, 08:37. Then 13 September 1924, 21:59, to 2 December 1926, 22:35. | 19 December 1923 at 11:25 p.m. to 6 April 1924 at 3:37 a.m. Then 13 September 1924 at 5:59 p.m. to 2 December 1926 at 5:35 p.m. |
| Born 1953 to 1956. | 22 October 1953, 15:36, to 12 January 1956, 18:46. Then 14 May 1956, 03:46, to 10 October 1956, 15:11. | 22 October 1953 at 10:36 a.m. to 12 January 1956 at 1:46 p.m. Then 13 May 1956 at 11:46 p.m. to 10 October 1956 at 11:11 a.m. |
| Born 1982 to 1985. | 29 November 1982, 10:29, to 6 May 1983, 19:30. Then 24 August 1983, 11:54, to 17 November 1985, 02:10. | 29 November 1982 at 5:29 a.m. to 6 May 1983 at 3:30 p.m. Then 24 August 1983 at 7:54 a.m. to 16 November 1985 at 9:10 p.m. |
| Born 2012 to 2015. | 5 October 2012, 20:35, to 23 December 2014, 16:34. Then 15 June 2015, 00:36, to 18 September 2015, 02:50. | 5 October 2012 at 4:35 p.m. to 23 December 2014 at 11:34 a.m. Then 14 June 2015 at 8:36 p.m. to 17 September 2015 at 10:50 p.m. |
Look at the gaps. Every group has one. A baby born in June 1983 has Saturn in Libra, not Scorpio, even though the year sits inside the usual range. A baby born in March 2015 has Saturn in Sagittarius. Quick lookups that print “2012 to 2015” as one block get those children wrong.
The clock matters at the edges. Saturn left Scorpio for good at 02:50 UTC on 18 September 2015. In New York, that was still 10:50 p.m. on 17 September. A child born in Brooklyn that evening at 10 p.m. has Saturn in Scorpio. Her UTC birth date is 18 September, the exit day itself, so a lookup by date alone cannot settle it. If you were born within a day of a crossing, you need the exact time and place of birth.
The last stay, from 2012 to 2015
Saturn walked into Scorpio on 5 October 2012. It stayed 809 days in one run. On 23 December 2014, it stepped into Sagittarius, the next sign. Then it seemed to turn around. It slid back into Scorpio on 15 June 2015 and stayed 95 more days. The last exit came on 18 September 2015. The total inside the sign was 904 days, or about two years and five months.
That backward slide has a name. Astrologers call it retrograde, which means the planet seems to move back along the zodiac for a while. Saturn never truly reverses. Earth, on its faster inner lane, passes it, and for about four and a half months Saturn looks as if it drifts back against the stars. The day it seems to stop and turn is called a station.
Three backward loops touched Scorpio during this stay. Here is each station, with Saturn’s place in the sign. A degree is one thirtieth of a sign, and an arc minute is one sixtieth of a degree.
| Date of the station, UTC | What Saturn did | Where it stood |
|---|---|---|
| 18 February 2013. | Turned backward. | At 11 degrees 32 minutes of Scorpio. |
| 8 July 2013. | Turned forward again. | At 4 degrees 49 minutes of Scorpio. |
| 2 March 2014. | Turned backward. | At 23 degrees 19 minutes of Scorpio. |
| 20 July 2014. | Turned forward again. | At 16 degrees 39 minutes of Scorpio. |
| 14 March 2015. | Turned backward. | At 4 degrees 56 minutes of Sagittarius. |
| 2 August 2015. | Turned forward again. | At 28 degrees 17 minutes of Scorpio. |
Every one of these dates is the same in New York. Out of the 904 days inside the sign, Saturn moved backward on 328. That is 36 percent. Over all 28 visits from 1600 to 2400, the figure is 37 percent, so the 2012 stay was normal on that count.
The June to September 2015 pass is worth a second look. During those weeks Saturn never went below 28 degrees 17 minutes of Scorpio. Children born in that slice all have Saturn in the last two degrees of the sign. As the section on the old books shows, those degrees carry a special rank for Saturn.
The next stay, from 2041 to 2044, and its two near misses
Saturn comes back to Scorpio on 11 November 2041, at 10:58 UTC, or 5:58 a.m. in New York. This visit will run longer, and the reason is where its backward loops fall.
| Event | UTC | New York time |
|---|---|---|
| Saturn enters Scorpio. | 11 November 2041, 10:58. | 11 November 2041 at 5:58 a.m. |
| It slips back into Libra. | 21 June 2042, 10:27. | 21 June 2042 at 6:27 a.m. |
| It comes back to Scorpio. | 14 July 2042, 14:00. | 14 July 2042 at 10:00 a.m. |
| It steps into Sagittarius. | 21 February 2044, 14:21. | 21 February 2044 at 9:21 a.m. |
| It backs into Scorpio. | 25 March 2044, 10:03. | 25 March 2044 at 6:03 a.m. |
| It leaves Scorpio for good. | 31 October 2044, 12:53. | 31 October 2044 at 8:53 a.m. |
Two of those crossings are near misses. In the summer of 2042, Saturn backs out of Scorpio and stops at 29 degrees 54 minutes of Libra. It gets only a tenth of a degree past the line. It stays out 23 days. In early 2044, Saturn crosses into Sagittarius and turns back at 14 arc minutes into that sign. It stays out 33 days.
I sorted every gap of that kind from 1600 to 2400. The gap of 2042 is the shortest of all of them. The gap of 2044 is the third shortest. So the loops that should pull Saturn out of the sign barely do, and it keeps nearly all its time in Scorpio. The result is 1,029 days inside. Only the stay of 1688 to 1691 was longer, at 1,042 days.
The 2012 stay did the reverse. Its last loop pushed Saturn out for almost six months, from December 2014 to June 2015. That gap cost Scorpio 173 days.
Jupiter, the other large slow planet, joins Saturn in Scorpio for 230 of those days in 2041 to 2044. People born then will have both of the old “heavy” planets in the same sign.
How long Saturn stays: 28 visits in 800 years
The neat rule says Saturn spends two and a half years in each sign. The real count for Scorpio runs from 890 days to 1,042 days. The middle value, or median, is 954 days, which is about two years and seven months.
| Visit | Days inside Scorpio | How it compares |
|---|---|---|
| 1923 to 1926. | 918 days. | Below the median. |
| 1953 to 1956. | 962 days. | Near the median. |
| 1982 to 1985. | 974 days. | Above the median. |
| 2012 to 2015. | 904 days. | Fourth shortest of 28. |
| 2041 to 2044. | 1,029 days. | Second longest of 28. |
| 2070 to 2073. | 901 days. | Second shortest of 28. |
The shortest stay of the whole run falls in 2365 to 2368, at 890 days. The span from first entry to last exit is steadier. It sits near 1,080 days for most visits.
One more pattern held on every visit. Saturn never crossed into Scorpio just once. In all 28 visits, it entered at least twice, because a backward loop always fell across one of the two borders. In 23 visits it entered twice. In five, it entered three times: 1659, 1865, 2041, 2218 and 2394. Our page on Saturn in Aquarius found the same rule for that sign, with every visit over 800 years crossing a border more than once. Capricorn is different. There, Saturn made one clean run from 1959 to 1962.
How common is Saturn in Scorpio?
A fair share for one sign would be one part in twelve, or 8.33 percent. Saturn stands in Scorpio 8.91 percent of the time. That figure covers ten full trips of Saturn around the zodiac, from April 1849 to April 2143. Over 26 full trips, from 1613 to 2378, the figure is again 8.91 percent. So about one person in eleven has Saturn in Scorpio.
That puts Scorpio fourth of the twelve signs. Our page on Saturn in Capricorn gives the full ranking over 27 full laps of Saturn, from 1613 to 2408: Capricorn 9.21 percent, Sagittarius 9.19, Aquarius 9.01, then Scorpio at 8.92. That page explains the cause. Saturn moves slowest at the far point of its path from the Sun, and that point lies near the start of Capricorn. Scorpio sits two signs away from it, so Saturn still moves a little slower than average there.
Short windows twist this number. Take only the births from 1950 to 2010, and the share comes out at 8.83 percent. Take 1900 to 2100, and it drops to 7.79 percent. That window holds six full visits and cuts off the seventh, which only starts in October 2100. A number like that says more about the window than about Saturn. That is why the ten full trips are the figure to use.
What the old books give Saturn in Scorpio
Claudius Ptolemy wrote the Tetrabiblos in Alexandria around 150 AD. In his scheme, each planet owns certain signs. Saturn rules Capricorn and Aquarius. It is exalted, or at its best, in Libra, and it falls, or is at its weakest, in Aries. Scorpio is none of these. Scorpio belongs to Mars, so Saturn arrives there as a guest. Our page on the Scorpio sign covers the sign itself.
William Lilly’s Christian Astrology, printed in London in 1647, calls a planet with no rank in its sign peregrine, meaning a stranger or wanderer. That is Saturn’s state across most of Scorpio. There is one exception. The old tables also split each sign into five uneven slices called terms, and each slice has a planet in charge. In the table Lilly prints, Saturn holds the last three degrees of Scorpio, from 27 to 30. The older Egyptian table, which Vettius Valens used in his Anthologies in the second century, gives Saturn the last six, from 24 to 30.
This is where the 2015 pass comes back. Everyone born between 15 June and 18 September 2015 has Saturn above 28 degrees of Scorpio. By both tables, their Saturn sits in its own term. It is not a stranger there. The page on Saturn in Pisces reads the same kind of small rank in a sign where Saturn owns nothing else.
Valens tied Saturn to slow and heavy matters: old age, land, losses, hidden things and inheritance. Scorpio is the eighth sign, and the eighth house of a chart carries some of those same topics: shared money, loans, legacies and death. Chris Brennan, in his 2017 book Hellenistic Astrology, walks through these rules for modern readers. Demetra George does the same in her work on ancient methods.
Modern writers moved the focus inward. Liz Greene, in Saturn: A New Look at an Old Devil (1976), read Saturn as the place where we feel lacking and then work hardest to make up for it. Stephen Arroyo framed Saturn as a teacher whose lessons last. Robert Hand, in his book on transits, tied Saturn to the slow building of structure over years. None of these writers claimed proof. This is a reading tradition, not a science.
Reading Saturn in Scorpio in your own chart
Put the old and the new together and a plain reading comes out. Saturn asks for effort and patience wherever it sits. Scorpio is a water sign, one of the three signs tied to feeling. It is fixed, which in astrology means steady and slow to change. So Saturn in Scorpio points to feelings that are held tightly and trusted slowly.
In practice, astrologers read it this way:
- Trust is built in steps, and it is tested before it is given.
- Shared money, loans and debts become a place to learn rules the hard way, and then keep them.
- Private matters stay private until the person decides otherwise.
- Control is the trap to watch. The work is to hold power without gripping it.
- The payoff comes late, with depth and staying power that a quick start would not give.
The house matters more than the sign for daily life. A house is one of twelve areas of life in a chart, set by the time and place of birth. Saturn in Scorpio in the second house points at income. In the seventh, it points at partners. The eighth house, which matches Scorpio’s topics, doubles the theme of shared money and trust.
The sign also marks a generation. The group born from 1982 to 1985 shares something extra. Pluto, the planet astrologers tie to deep change, entered Scorpio in November 1983. Saturn and Pluto shared the sign on 641 of the 974 days of that stay, about two days in three. The group born from 2012 to 2015 had no outer planet beside Saturn.
Each group meets its first Saturn return, the moment Saturn comes back to its birth place, during the next visit. People born in 1982 to 1985 had theirs from 2012 to 2015. Children born in 2012 to 2015 will have theirs from 2041 to 2044, during that long stay. For people born in 1953 to 1956, 2012 to 2015 was the second return.
A sign away the lesson reframes itself, and Saturn in Sagittarius anchors discipline in expansive belief.
Charts from the neighbouring cohort read as Saturn in Libra, with discipline attached to relational balance.
How I got these numbers
I would rather show the work than ask for trust. Anyone with a laptop can redo it.
First route: I used the astronomy-engine code library, which computes where the planets stand from the VSOP87 model of the solar system. I used the tropical zodiac, the frame of Western astrology, where Scorpio runs from 210 to 240 degrees along the Sun’s yearly path. I read Saturn’s place once a day from 1600 to 2400. Each time it crossed 210 or 240 degrees, I split the gap in half again and again until the moment was pinned to under a minute. For stations, I searched for the exact turning point of each loop. Then I added up the time between each entry and each exit.
Second route: I asked JPL Horizons, the planet service of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, built on a different model called DE441. I pulled Saturn’s place for every day from 1600 to 2400. Horizons serves the planet itself only from 1750 to 2250, so for the full span I used the center of mass of Saturn and its moons, which is off by far less than an arc second. Both routes found the same 122 border crossings. The middle gap between them was 8 minutes. The share of time in Scorpio came out at 9.186 percent in both, over the raw 800 years.
The dates in the tables above come from Horizons, read minute by minute around each crossing. Near a station, Saturn barely moves, so a tiny change in its place shifts the crossing time a lot. That is why the two routes differ by about an hour and a half on the 2042 crossings, and by under 25 minutes on every crossing listed for 1923 to 2015. Station dates are given to the day, since a planet at a station hardly moves for many hours.
One caution on the raw 800 years. That window holds 27 trips and a slice of a 28th, and the slice falls on Scorpio and its neighbors. That is why this page uses whole trips, ten or 26 of them, for the share of time.
Questions people ask
When was Saturn last in Scorpio?
From 5 October 2012 to 23 December 2014, and again from 15 June to 18 September 2015, in UTC. In New York time, the second pass ran from the evening of 14 June to the evening of 17 September 2015.
When will Saturn be in Scorpio again?
From 11 November 2041 to 31 October 2044. It steps out twice for short spells: into Libra from 21 June to 14 July 2042, and into Sagittarius from 21 February to 25 March 2044.
How long does Saturn stay in Scorpio?
Between 890 and 1,042 days per visit over 1600 to 2400, with a median of 954 days. The 2012 stay lasted 904 days. The 2041 stay will last 1,029.
How rare is Saturn in Scorpio?
It is not rare. Saturn stands in Scorpio 8.91 percent of the time over ten full trips around the zodiac. That is a bit above one in twelve, and fourth of the twelve signs.
Is Saturn weak in Scorpio?
By the old rules, Saturn has no rank across most of Scorpio, since the sign belongs to Mars. It does hold the last degrees of the sign as its own term: from 27 degrees in Lilly’s table, and from 24 degrees in the Egyptian table.
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