When is the next Mars retrograde?

The next one begins on January 10, 2027 and ends on April 1, 2027, between Virgo and Leo. That is 81 days — and, as you will see further down, it is the maximum length a Mars retrogradation reaches. After it, the next one only arrives in February 2029.

Times are Brasília time and come from the same ephemeris this site uses to build charts. The fourth column is the shadow, and it is the part almost no site publishes.

Look at the first row and the last. The 2027 period lasts 81 days; the 2035 one, sixty. That is twenty-one days of difference between two retrogradations of the same planet, and there is an explanation for it.

Why does Mars skip whole years?

Because it only goes retrograde every 25 months — 0.47 times a year —, and an interval longer than twelve months means there are calendar years with no retrograde day at all. There were 45 periods between 1930 and 2025, and 38 of those 96 years had not a single day of Mars retrograde: 40% of them.

That is what separates Mars from the other two retrogrades people talk about. Mercury comes back three times a year and takes up 19% of the calendar; Venus shows up every year and seven months. Mars takes up 9.5% of the time, and takes it up concentrated — two and a half months at once, and then almost two years of nothing.

That arithmetic changes what the phase means. A phenomenon that happens one day in five does not explain a bad week, and that is why Mercury retrograde explains less than it appears to — the whole argument is in what a retrograde planet is. Mars is the opposite: when it happens, it happens far apart — and that is enough to mark the year it happened in. Anyone over thirty has already lived through a thousand-odd days of Mars retrograde without ever knowing it, but they came in blocks, and blocks are what memory keeps.

Why do some periods last 60 days and others 81?

Because the orbit of Mars is the most elongated among the planets traditional astrology deals with, and the distance between it and Earth at the moment of the meeting decides the size of the loop. Measured across the 45 periods from 1930 to 2025: the shortest lasted 60.0 days and the longest, 81.1. The average is 74.

And the variation is not random — it follows the sign, in a clean curve:

The reason is astronomical and worth knowing, because it knocks down the idea that every retrograde is the same. Mars comes closest to the Sun at a point of its orbit matching the region of Aquarius and Pisces, and farthest away in the region of Virgo and Libra. When the meeting with Earth happens on the near side, Mars is fast and goes by quickly: the loop closes in two months. On the far side it is slow, and Earth takes almost three months to overtake it.

The same holds for the size of the stretch redone: from 10 degrees in the short periods to 19.5 degrees in the long ones. A Mars retrograde in Virgo revises nearly twice as much sky as a Mars retrograde in Pisces — and it takes a third longer doing it.

That is why the January 2027 one deserves attention: it stops in Virgo and ends in Leo, which is exactly the slowest and longest band in the table.

What is the shadow of Mars, and why does it last half a year?

The shadow is the patch of sky Mars covers moving forwards before it redoes it backwards — and, with Mars, that stretch out and back takes more than seven months. It opens on the day Mars crosses the degree where it will stop going back, and closes on the day it retakes the degree where the retrogradation began.

Compare with Mercury, where the shadow opens two weeks before and closes two weeks after. With Mars, the 2027 one opens on November 5, 2026 and only closes on June 7, 2027. That is 214 days around a retrograde period of 81 — the shell is nearly three times the core.

In practice this means the matter does not arrive on the published date. It shows up on the way out, in November, as a plan setting itself in motion; it comes back in the middle, between January and April, to be checked; and it settles on the way out, by June. Whoever looks only at the two middle dates thinks the period came out of nowhere.

What really changes during Mars retrograde?

Mars is the function of acting: wanting a thing, going after it and fighting for it if need be. When it moves backwards, that function turns inwards. The will does not vanish — it stops finding the direct way out it usually finds.

In the tradition, Mars governs initiative, cutting, competition and anger. What retrogradation does to each of them is the same thing, and it is recognisable:

• Anger arrives late. You leave the conversation without having said what you should have, and the right answer shows up fully formed two hours later, in the car.
• The start falters and the restart works. Starting something from scratch costs more than it would in another month; going back to a shelved project costs less.
• The force goes in the wrong direction. It is the phase in which irritation at work turns into a row at home, because the real target is out of reach.
• The body charges for it. Mars is also musculature and physical drive. Fatigue with no apparent cause and injury in whoever pushed the workout are common complaints of those weeks.
• The decision stops halfway. Not out of doubt: for want of the final push that normally comes on its own.

None of this is a verdict. They are tendencies, and a tendency is something you can work with — the opposite of a sentence. Astrology here diagnoses neither fatigue nor injury: anyone with a symptom that persists sees a doctor, and that line is not a formality.

What to do, and what is not worth postponing

There is no prohibition, and the arithmetic shows why: if you are over thirty, you have already lived about a thousand days of Mars retrograde, and some of the best days of your life are among them. What changes is the yield of each kind of effort, not the permission.

What pays off:

• Go back to what was started. The abandoned workout, the stalled building work, the conversation left halfway. The phase favours whoever returns to something already begun.
• Redo the plan before fighting for it. If the argument is unavoidable, buy yourself time by writing down what you will say. Mars retrograde punishes improvisation and rewards whoever arrived with the case already made.
• Find out whose anger it is. It is the useful question of those weeks: the annoyance that shows up usually has an address, and it is almost never the one in front of you.

What is not worth postponing: treatment, a deadline, enrolment, a move already decided, surgery the doctor has scheduled. None of those things gets better for waiting two and a half months, and the next free window may be two years away — which, with Mars, is literal.

What is worth postponing, when you can, is the beginning that depends on a burst of drive: opening the company, launching the project, declaring the war, buying the gym. Not because it will go wrong, but because the energy that pushes those things is busy looking backwards.

Mars retrograde in your chart is another matter

Being born in one of those periods is not living a transit: it is a fixed trait, and it happens to about 9.5% of people. One in ten, which is far fewer than natal Mercury retrograde — and that is why it describes something more specific.

People with Mars retrograde in the chart tend to have their own way of using force: the will passes through the inside before it comes out, anger takes a while to arrive and then arrives whole, and direct competition displeases. It is not a lack of Mars — it is Mars by another route. Many people with this position find they do better working for something than against someone.

The text that describes the natal retrogradation of every planet, with the proportions of each, is what a retrograde planet is. And if what you want is to read your Mars by sign and by house, the series begins at Mars in Aries and at Mars in the 1st house.

Frequently asked questions about Mars retrograde