2026 Year of the Horse: Dates, Horse Birth Years and Tai Sui Signs

The 2026 Chinese zodiac year is the Year of the Horse (马年), a Bing Wu (丙午) year in the sixty-year cycle. It began on Tuesday, February 17, 2026, and ends on Friday, February 5, 2027. The Goat year starts the next day, on February 6, 2027.

If you were born close to the turn of the year, or you are simply curious how the sign is worked out, this guide sets out the exact dates, the Horse birth years, a few worked examples and the Tai Sui pattern that folk tradition links to the year. Everything here is cultural background, and the dates are the ones used across this site.

Year of the Horse boundaries

Chinese zodiac years begin at Chinese New Year, not on January 1. Encyclopaedia Britannica's entry on Chinese New Year explains that the zodiac year begins with the festival, and the Chinese calendar entry notes that the zodiac animal changes at that point. The exact boundary dates here come from the Hong Kong Observatory's Gregorian-Lunar Calendar Conversion Table.

Babies born from January 1 to February 16, 2026 belong to the Snake year that began on January 29, 2025. From February 17, 2026 to February 5, 2027 the sign is Horse. You can check any date on the 2026 page.

Horse years at a glance

Each Horse year runs from one Chinese New Year to the next. The table below lists every recent Horse year with its boundary dates.

Horse year	Starts	Ends
1930	1930-01-30	1931-02-16
1942	1942-02-15	1943-02-04
1954	1954-02-03	1955-01-23
1966	1966-01-21	1967-02-08
1978	1978-02-07	1979-01-27
1990	1990-01-27	1991-02-14
2002	2002-02-12	2003-01-31
2014	2014-01-31	2015-02-18
2026	2026-02-17	2027-02-05

For more background on the cycle and how each Horse year is counted, see the Year of the Horse guide.

Worked examples at the boundary

Because the zodiac year follows the lunar calendar, the sign can change partway through January or February. These examples use only the boundary dates above.

Birth date	Sign	Reasoning
2014-01-30	Snake	The 2014 Horse year starts the next day, so this date is still in the previous Snake year.
2014-01-31	Horse	This is the first day of the 2014 Horse year.
2002-02-11	Snake	The 2002 Horse year starts on February 12.
2002-02-12	Horse	This is the first day of the 2002 Horse year.
2027-02-05	Horse	This is the last day of the 2026 Horse year.

If your birthday falls near one of these dates, look at the exact start date for that year rather than assuming the sign from the calendar year alone.

How the zodiac year is counted

The Chinese calendar is lunisolar. Its months follow the moon and run 29 or 30 days, and Britannica's Chinese calendar entry notes that intercalary months are added from time to time to keep the calendar in step with the seasons. Years are counted using ten Heavenly Stems and twelve Earthly Branches, which together make a sixty-year cycle. The Earthly Branches article explains that the twelve zodiac animals correspond to these branches, and the Smith College Museum of Art describes the same pairing of stems and branches for naming years, months and days.

Historians date the use of this year-count to the Han dynasty, which adopted it around the second century CE, according to Britannica. The Victoria and Albert Museum notes that the stem-and-branch system with its 60-year cycle was in use before 1912.

What the Horse represents

The Horse is traditionally associated with energy, independence, travel and perseverance. A popular New Year wish is 马到成功, "success upon the horse's arrival". These are cultural associations rather than predictions.

It is also worth knowing that the idea of assigning personality traits to each sign is fairly recent. The V&A notes that personality-by-sign material does not appear in old Chinese texts, so treat these descriptions as tradition, not as science.

Tai Sui in the Year of the Horse

In folk belief, Tai Sui is a deity associated with each year. The Kew Ong Yah Temple's Right Hall page explains that sixty Tai Sui gods take turns by year through the sixty Jiazi cycle, and that a person's birth-year god is treated as their natal god. The Wikipedia Tai Sui article gives general background.

Under the folk year-sign rule set used on this site, these signs have a traditional Tai Sui relationship with the Horse year:

Sign	Relationship
Horse	Zhi Tai Sui (own year) + Punishment (self-punishment)
Rat	Clash (chong)
Ox	Harm (hai)
Rabbit	Break (po)

This is a folk practice. It is not a forecast of luck or misfortune. You can check your own sign with the Tai Sui checker, or read What Is Tai Sui?

What research has found about zodiac effects

Some researchers have tested whether the zodiac shows up in real-world data. The results are mixed, and most point to timing effects rather than lasting differences.

Birth timing

In Hong Kong, a study by Yip, Lee and Cheung (2002) found that births rose by 7.8% in 1988 and 4.2% in 2000 over the preceding year, both Dragon years. The authors described this as a timing effect with little effect on cumulative fertility. A study of Taiwan by Goodkind (1993) found that notable Dragon-year increases did not occur before 1976, and that the 1976 boom was mostly driven by changes in marriage timing, abortion and coital behavior.

Expectations and schooling

Mocan and Yu (NBER) found that births jump in Dragon years, and that Dragon-born children were more likely to be college educated and to have higher entrance exam scores. However, the effect disappeared once parents' expectations were taken into account.

National patterns

Ma Yan's 2010 study in Population Research found no zodiac birth preference at the national level in mainland China from 1949 to 2008. Fluctuations in births were better explained by population momentum.

How to check your sign

To find your sign, start with your birth date and compare it with the boundary dates for that year. Use the homepage to browse the zodiac tools, or go straight to the 2026 page to see who is a Horse. Your Year of the Horse reading and the yearly view of the Chinese horoscope are also available for reference.

Frequently asked questions

When does the Year of the Horse begin and end?

The 2026 Year of the Horse began on Tuesday, February 17, 2026, and ends on Friday, February 5, 2027. The Goat year starts on February 6, 2027. Chinese zodiac years begin at Chinese New Year rather than on January 1, so the start date changes from year to year. The boundary dates used on this site come from the Hong Kong Observatory's conversion table.

Is someone born in January 2026 a Horse?

Not if they were born before February 17, 2026. Babies born from January 1 to February 16, 2026 belong to the Snake year that began on January 29, 2025. Only births from February 17, 2026 through February 5, 2027 fall in the Horse year, so check the exact date rather than the calendar year.

Which years were Horse years?

The recent Horse years listed on this site are 1930, 1942, 1954, 1966, 1978, 1990, 2002, 2014 and 2026. Each one starts at Chinese New Year and runs until the next one. The table in this guide gives the exact start and end dates for each Horse year, including the Year of the Horse that began in 2014.

What is Tai Sui in the Year of the Horse?

In folk belief, Tai Sui is a deity linked to each year, and the Year of the Horse has its own traditional Tai Sui relationship. This site lists the Horse as Zhi Tai Sui, with a self-punishment note, and gives relationships for Rat, Ox and Rabbit. These are folk traditions, not predictions, and the Tai Sui checker can show your own sign's relationship.

Do zodiac signs change birth rates or personality?

Studies are mixed. Hong Kong data from 1988 and 2000 showed Dragon-year birth rises of 7.8% and 4.2%, which researchers described as a timing effect with little effect on total fertility. Personality descriptions by sign are a cultural tradition, and the V&A notes they are fairly recent, so they are not scientific findings.

Where do the zodiac dates on this site come from?

The dates come from the Hong Kong Observatory's Gregorian-Lunar Calendar Conversion Table, which gives the start and end of each Chinese zodiac year. This site uses Chinese New Year as the year boundary. Encyclopaedia Britannica also notes that the zodiac year begins with the festival, and it describes the lunisolar calendar behind the dates.