Year of the Monkey: Birth Years, Ages and Sign Relations

If you were born in a Year of the Monkey, the earthly branch of your birth year is Shen (申). It comes round every 12 years; the most recent were 1992, 2004, 2016 and 2028. Below: every Monkey year with its year pillar, na yin, your age in 2026, and the date the sign actually changes each year.

Year of the Monkey: every year from 1924 to 2043

Ages here are the age you reach on your birthday in 2026. In Taiwan and much of East Asia people also use "virtual age" (xu sui), where you are 1 at birth and add a year at each Lunar New Year, so it runs one or two years higher. Start of Spring times are Taiwan time (UTC+8).

Pay attention if you were born between late January and mid-February. BaZi changes the year at the Start of Spring (Li Chun), while popular custom, and most zodiac websites, change it at Lunar New Year. Between 1924 and 2043, Lunar New Year fell up to 14 days before the Start of Spring and up to 16 days after it. Born after the Start of Spring but before Lunar New Year in one of the years above, you are a Monkey by BaZi but still the previous sign by popular reckoning; the reverse can happen too. The lookup below settles it from your birthday.

The Monkey's branch at a glance

Earthly branches label years, months and two-hour periods alike. Being "a Monkey" only refers to the branch of your year pillar. Someone born in a Shen month or a Shen hour also has Shen in their chart, but their zodiac sign is not the Monkey.

How the Monkey relates to the other signs

Classical texts sort the relations between branches into combinations (attraction, joining forces) and clashes, punishments, harms and breaks (friction and wear). Popular "zodiac compatibility" comes straight from this: trines and Six Combinations are said to get along, clashes are said to collide. But that compares only the year branches of two people, and a BaZi chart has eight characters. Our compatibility guide reads how two whole charts interact and never calls a couple incompatible because their signs clash.

The Monkey and Tai Sui in 2026 and 2027

Tai Sui is the branch of the current year. For the full 2027 reading for the Monkey, see Monkey in 2027; for what offending Tai Sui means and its five forms, see offending Tai Sui.

The popular image of the Monkey

Folk wisdom says people born in the Year of the Monkey are clever, full of ideas and hard to keep still. It grew out of the animal's image and is fun as an association, but in BaZi personality is read mainly from the Day Master, the heavenly stem of your birth day; see the ten Day Masters.

Three common misconceptions

The other signs