Astrology

Is Mercury in retrograde?

The apparent motion of the planets, today

A direct answer for today, the next dates and the complete zodiac journey of each period. Astronomy for the calculation; astrological tradition for the interpretation, without alarmism.

Answer for today

No, Mercury is not in retrograde

The next one begins on 24 October 2026 and runs until 13 November 2026. 32 days from now.

Today is 23 September 2026

Direct

Mercury retrograde periods

Three times a year, around three weeks each time. These are the ones for 2026 and 2027:

already past23 days
26 February 2026 20 March 2026 in Pisces
already past24 days
29 June 2026 23 July 2026 in Cancer
still to come20 days
24 October 2026 13 November 2026 in Scorpio
still to come22 days
9 February 2027 3 March 2027 sign change: Pisces → Aquarius
still to come24 days
10 June 2027 4 July 2027 sign change: Cancer → Gemini
still to come21 days
7 October 2027 28 October 2027 sign change: Scorpio → Libra

And right now, the others

Mercury is not the only one making this apparent journey. These are moving backwards across the sky right now:

♄ Saturn until 11 December 2026 Time to go over the foundations: whatever was built in a hurry asks for a second pass.
♅ Uranus until 8 February 2027 The jolt goes on inside: how you think changes before how you live does.
♆ Neptune until 12 December 2026 The fog lifts: it becomes easier to see where you were telling yourself a story.
♇ Pluto until 15 October 2026 What was buried comes up to the surface, in its own time and without asking.

What this really is

No planet drives backwards. What happens is that the Earth and the planet run in different lanes at different speeds, and when one overtakes the other, the one alongside seems to slip back for a while against the background of stars — exactly like the car you overtake on the motorway. With Mercury it happens three times a year because it is the fastest of them all: it laps us often. The phenomenon is real and can be calculated to the day; what is tradition, and not astronomy, is what it is said to mean.

What tradition says

Mercury rules everything that comes and goes: errands, contracts, trains, messages, cables. Tradition says that when it appears to slip back, all of that turns inside out — parcels go missing, messages get read the wrong way, the server falls over on the worst possible day. What does hold up, without having to believe in anything, is that it makes a decent reminder: nearly every mess of those weeks is a communication mess, and those happen all year round.

What to do about it

Read it twice before you hit send, keep the receipt, leave early and ask about the thing you have been taking for granted. And the one piece of advice tradition really does get right: it is a good stretch for anything starting with “re” — review, redo, revisit, reconcile — and a poor one for signing without looking.

And how does it affect you?

Mercury being retrograde is a collective fact. To know which area of your chart it moves through and what it activates for you, we need your birth details.

View my personal transits today

The dates are astronomy: they come from working out where each planet really is, day by day, and they match the published ephemerides. The interpretation is astrological tradition, not a forecast — and certainly not an excuse for not sending that email.

It is the most asked question in the whole of astrology, and it almost always gets asked in the middle of a small disaster: the email that never arrived, the flight held on the tarmac, the conversation that went sideways for no reason at all. Above you have today's answer, plainly put, with the exact dates of the period under way — or of the next one, if there is none right now.

These dates are not copied off somebody else's list. They come from tracking where Mercury actually is, day after day, and catching the moment its apparent motion turns around, then narrowing that moment down by bisection. Checked against the published ephemerides, the six retrograde periods of 2025 and 2026 come out with a difference of zero or one day. And because the turn happens at a particular hour, the dates here are given in UK time: in another time zone one of them can land on the neighbouring day.

What you will not find here is the scary part. No planet drives backwards — it is a trick of perspective, like the car you overtake on the motorway — and no week of the year is cursed. What does make sense is taking the reminder for what it is worth: check before you sign, leave with time to spare, and ask about the thing you had been taking for granted. If you would like to see where Mercury stood on the day you were born, along with everything else, your full birth chart is waiting.