Rahu transit 2026–2028

14 October 2026: Rahu is in Aquarius; next change of sign: 5 December 2026.

Rahu and Ketu: the dates first follow the mean node, as Drik Panchang and most calendars print them; the true node, the one our charts use, comes second and can differ by days to weeks.

Signs Rahu passes through, 2026–2028

Rahu by the true node (as in your chart)

Rahu: sign changes and turns, 2026–2028

Written for 14 October 2026; the line at the top is recalculated for your own day. Dates follow the engine of our charts: sidereal (Lahiri), apparent positions; Rahu and Ketu by the mean node first, then the true node. Other sites can differ by minutes, for Jupiter and Saturn by up to about an hour; more.

What Rahu stands for

Rahu is the Moon's north node: a point in the sky, not a body. In the Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra Rahu and Ketu give the effects of the house lord they join or of the house they occupy (ch. 34, sl. 16) and, with Ketu, form the army of the planetary court (ch. 3, sl. 14–15). Ambition, novelty, foreign places and technology are later, general associations. Its transit points to the area of the chart it passes through; we state no outcome.

Always backwards, always opposite Ketu

Rahu moves backwards through the signs, so each of its ingresses is into the previous sign, and Ketu is always exactly opposite. Rahu and Ketu are the axis along which eclipses fall. Most calendars, Drik Panchang among them, print the mean node, which moves evenly; our charts use the true node, which wobbles across a sign border for a few days around an ingress (its date here is when it settles in the new sign). The two dates differ by ten days to a month, so this page gives both, the mean node first. Graha page: Rahu in Vedic astrology.

How we calculate and verify

Positions come from the same engine as the charts in JyotiSoft: sidereal zodiac, Lahiri ayanamsha, apparent positions (as the Indian Astronomical Ephemeris and Drik Panchang; since 14 October 2026), moments to the minute, stored in UTC. Rahu and Ketu are given by the mean node first, the date most calendars print, and by the true node that our charts use.

• Checked against independent sources. Every sign change and every retrograde or direct turn is compared, in automated tests that fail the build on a mismatch, with the published tables of Drik Panchang (New Delhi, Lahiri); eclipses with the NASA GSFC catalogue; tithi and Ekadashi with Drik Panchang. Drik's Lahiri runs a few arcseconds ahead of the standard one of the Indian ephemeris, so its moments are later than ours by about 3 minutes for the Sun and up to an hour for Jupiter and Saturn, more when they move slowly; the tests model exactly that difference and allow nothing more. Last cross-check: 14 October 2026.
• What follows the classical texts. What a graha signifies and which are benefic or malefic: Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra, ch. 3 sl. 12–15, ch. 32 sl. 18–21, ch. 34 sl. 8–10 and 16; combustion limits: BPHS ch. 7 (table of degrees in the translator's note; our charts use it as printed, Saturn 16° in direct and retrograde motion alike); strength of a retrograde graha: BPHS ch. 27 sl. 21–23; transits counted from the Moon sign: Phaladeepika ch. 26, the Ashtakavarga method: BPHS ch. 66. Chapters and verses follow R. Santhanam's English edition.
• What does not. Sade Sati, Guru Peyarchi and the sankranti festivals are later or regional traditions. Practical readings such as “Mercury retrograde, a time to review” are modern conventions. We mark them as such.

How the site's texts are written and checked

Questions

See also

• Saturn (Shani) transit
• Ketu transit
• Horoscope 2027
• Planetary transits 2027
• Planetary transits
• Ekadashi 2027
• Hindu festivals 2026–2027
• Wedding
• Moving into a home
• Buying a car
• Buying property
• 2026 or 2027 for a wedding?
• Purnima and Amavasya 2027
• Eclipses of 2027
• Annular solar eclipse, 6 February 2027
• Jupiter back in Cancer, January – June 2027
• Saturn in Aries 2027
• Mars retrograde, January – April 2027
• Mercury retrograde, February – March 2027

Positions and tables: sidereal zodiac, Lahiri ayanamsha — the same as professional Jyotish astrologers use, and the same calculation as the charts in JyotiSoft. Updated 2026-10-14.