Free tool
Chinese Zodiac & Birth Element Calculator
Your sign is more than an animal: classical practice pairs it with one of five elements and a yin/yang polarity — a 60-year cycle, not a 12-year one. Born in January or early February? Most websites give you the wrong sign, because the classical year begins at Li Chun (~February 4), not January 1. This calculator gets the boundary right.
Your result
Your sign in 2026
What the element adds
The animal is the year's branch; the element comes from its stem. Together they repeat only every 60 years — which is why a 1986 Fire Tiger and a 1998 Earth Tiger are, classically speaking, quite different people. This stem-and-branch system is the same machinery behind a full BaZi (Four Pillars) reading, which uses all four of your pillars — year, month, day, and hour — not the year alone.
The year sign is one pillar of four
A year sign is to a BaZi chart what a single letter is to a name. A full reading maps your Day Master, useful elements, and the timing of your next ten years — with direct answers to three questions you bring.
Ask about a BaZi reading — $488Personal reply within 12 hours, Mon–Sat (HKT).
Why January birthdays get the wrong sign elsewhere
Most English-language zodiac pages either use January 1 (plainly wrong) or Lunar New Year (the popular convention) as the year boundary. Classical Chinese metaphysics — the system BaZi and feng shui calculations actually run on — uses Li Chun, the solar term around February 4. For anyone born between January 1 and mid-February, the three conventions can give two or even three different answers. We use the classical one and tell you when your date sits on the boundary, instead of guessing silently.
Related: your Kua number and lucky directions · this year's Flying Stars chart · glossary of terms.