Saturn (Shani) transit 2026–2028

14 October 2026: Saturn is in Pisces, retrograde; next change of sign: 2 June 2027.

Signs Saturn passes through, 2026–2028

Saturn: sign changes and turns, 2026–2028

Saturn: combustion periods

The periods in which the graha stands within the classical limit of the Sun (combust, asta): the degrees of the BPHS table, the same rule as in the charts. Sites that print the visibility-based “asta” of the almanacs show other dates.

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 Saturn stands for

In the Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra Saturn denotes grief (ch. 3, sl. 12–13), is a servant in the planetary court (sl. 14–15) and shows the sons (ch. 32, sl. 18–21); later tradition adds time, discipline and work as its themes. Its transit points to the area of the chart it passes through for about two and a half years. We state no outcome.

Sade Sati and retrograde Saturn

Sade Sati ("seven and a half") is the roughly 7½ years in which Saturn passes through the sign before your Moon sign, through your Moon sign and through the one after it. It is a later tradition: the Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra does not mention it. How demanding it is depends on the whole chart. See whether it concerns you with the Sade Sati calculator. Saturn turns retrograde for about 4½ months every year; when this happens at a sign boundary it can step back into the previous sign for a while. More about the graha on the Saturn page.

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

• Venus (Shukra) transit
• Rahu 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.