How many days a year is Mars retrograde?

34.2 days on average between 2016 and 2036 — 9.4% of the time. It varies from 0 to 81 days depending on the year, because the synodic period does not divide evenly into a calendar year.

When is Mars retrograde in 2026?

It is not. Mars has no retrograde period in 2026 — the next one falls outside the year, which is normal for the outer planets.

What is a retrograde shadow period?

The stretch before and after the retrograde when the planet is covering the same degrees it will go back over. We compute it from the definition: the shadow opens when the planet first reaches the degree the retrograde will end on, and closes when it returns to the degree it began on. That roughly doubles the affected window.

Is Mars retrograde actually moving backwards?

No. It is an apparent effect: we are watching from a planet that is also moving, and when the geometry lines up the other planet appears to slide backwards against the stars. Nothing changes about its actual orbit.

Mars Retrograde 2026: Exact Dates, Shadow Periods and How Often It Happens

Right now · 30 July 2026

No — direct

♂ Gemini 21.38°

Moving forward 0.6781° per day. Next retrograde begins 10 January 2027.

What the other pages do not tell you

The part that is measurable

9.4% of all time Mars is retrograde — an average of 34.2 days a year across 2016–2036. Not a rare event: it is the normal state roughly a fraction.

0–81 days, the spread between the lightest and heaviest year in that window. The total is not fixed, because the synodic period of 779.94 days does not divide evenly into a calendar year.

2026 in detail

Station times are UTC, found by bisection on the sign of daily motion. Degrees are the ecliptic longitude within the sign.

No retrograde in 2026

Mars stays direct for the whole calendar year. For the outer planets this happens whenever the retrograde loop falls either side of the year boundary — check the neighbouring years below.

Which signs it happens in

26 retrograde periods counted between 2000 and 2050, grouped by the sign the station falls in. Worth noting because the folklore says these cluster in certain signs — over fifty years they do not, and here is the count.

3 Gemini · 11.5% 3 Cancer · 11.5% 3 Leo · 11.5% 3 Libra · 11.5% 3 Sagittarius · 11.5% 2 Virgo · 7.7% 2 Scorpio · 7.7% 2 Aquarius · 7.7% 2 Pisces · 7.7% 1 Aries · 3.8% 1 Taurus · 3.8% 1 Capricorn · 3.8%

Other years

2023 12 days retrograde 2024 25 days retrograde 2025 54 days retrograde 2026 0 days retrograde 2027 81 days retrograde 2028 0 days retrograde 2029 80 days retrograde 2030 0 days retrograde 2031 76 days retrograde 2032 0 days retrograde

Was it retrograde when you were born? Enter a birth date and get all five planets, with the degree and the period it fell inside. All retrograde planets Mercury through Saturn, how long each one reverses and why the outer planets take months. How this is calculated The orbital elements, the geocentric longitude, and the accuracy we claim for the station times.

What is actually happening

Mars never moves backwards. What reverses is its apparent path against the fixed stars, and it reverses because we are watching from a moving platform. As Earth and Mars pass each other, the line of sight between them swings the other way for a while — the same effect as a car on the motorway that seems to slide backwards when you overtake it.

The interval between one retrograde and the next is the synodic period: 779.94 days for Mars. That number is why the count per year is not constant. 779.94 does not divide evenly into 365.25, so the periods drift through the calendar and occasionally three fit inside one year where usually there would be fewer, or the reverse.

Reading it, traditionally

Mars is associated with drive, conflict, momentum and anything you were about to start. The traditional advice during its retrograde is to revisit rather than initiate — which, stated plainly, is advice that would be reasonable at any time.

The honest context is the number at the top of this page: if Mars is retrograde 9.4% of the time, then any rule of the form “do not do X during it” rules out 9.4% of your life. Include the shadow periods and the figure roughly doubles. We publish the arithmetic precisely so you can decide how much weight that deserves.

The shadow periods, defined

Astrologers talk about the “shadow” or “storm” either side of a retrograde, but the dates are usually given by eye. They do not need to be. The planet enters its pre-retrograde shadow the moment it first reaches the degree the retrograde will end on, and leaves the post-retrograde shadow when it returns to the degree the retrograde began on. Both are crossings of a known longitude, so both can be found exactly — which is what the table above does.

Mars retrograde 2026