Planets in the Houses: The Ten Planets Through the Twelve Houses

Every planet in a birth chart has both a sign and a house. The planet says what kind of energy, the sign says in what style, and the house says which area of life it goes into. This page first explains how to read house placements, then lays out all 120 placements of the ten planets in the twelve houses in one table, each with its own detailed page.

Ten planets × twelve houses

Click a planet to compare it across the twelve houses, or a number for the detailed reading of that placement.

Reading a house placement in three steps

Step one: what the planet governs. The Sun is self and vitality, the Moon emotions and security, Mercury thinking and communication, Venus love and values, Mars action and desire, Jupiter expansion and opportunity, Saturn responsibility and life lessons; Uranus, Neptune and Pluto stand for breakthrough, ideals and deep transformation. See The Ten Planets.

Step two: what the house covers. The 1st house is self and outward image, the 2nd money and values, the 3rd communication and learning, the 4th home and roots, the 5th romance and creativity, the 6th daily work and habits, the 7th partners and collaboration, the 8th shared resources and intimacy, the 9th travel and beliefs, the 10th career and social role, the 11th friends and community, the 12th the unconscious and what happens behind the scenes. See The Twelve Houses.

Step three: layer the two, then add the sign and aspects. Venus in the 10th house, for example, is “love and beauty” applied to “career and public image”: charm and good taste often help at work. Whether that charm is warm and outgoing or reserved depends on Venus’s sign; whether a Saturn square is holding it back is another layer again.

House systems: Placidus and whole sign

There are many ways to divide the sky into twelve houses. The most common today is Placidus (our default), which gives houses of unequal size; classical astrology often uses whole sign houses, where the rising sign is the entire 1st house and each sign is one house. In our calculation for people born in Taipei, the two systems put a planet in a different house about 51.5% of the time on average. Taipei is at 25° north; there the largest Placidus house averages about 35° and the smallest about 25°, and the gap grows at higher latitudes. Both are legitimate methods, and our chart calculator lets you switch between them.

Angular, succedent and cadent houses

The cusps of the angular houses (1st, 4th, 7th, 10th) are the four angles: Ascendant, IC, Descendant and Midheaven. Planets there express themselves outwardly and are easily seen. Succedent houses (2nd, 5th, 8th, 11th) build up and consolidate; cadent houses (3rd, 6th, 9th, 12th) lean toward learning, adjusting and working behind the scenes. This is not a ranking of good and bad, just different ways energy shows itself.

An empty house is not a bad sign: look at the house ruler

With ten planets spread over twelve houses, some houses are always empty. In our calculation for people born in Taipei, a chart has 5.7 empty houses on average (2 empty houses: 0.1%; 3 empty houses: 1.7%; 4 empty houses: 11.9%; 5 empty houses: 29.5%; 6 empty houses: 34.9%; 7 empty houses: 17.9%; 8 empty houses: 3.8%; 9 empty houses: 0.3%); not a single chart had no empty house. An empty house only means no planet puts extra emphasis on that area; it does not mean that area goes badly. To read an empty house, look at its ruler: the planet that rules the sign on the house cusp. Where that planet sits and what condition it is in tell the story of that area. If your 7th house cusp is in Libra, for example, look at where your Venus is.

The five-degree rule

If a planet is within 5° before the next house cusp, many astrologers count it as already in the next house. This happens more than you might think: in our calculations, each planet sits within 5° before a cusp between 16% and 17.9% of the time. If that is you, read both houses.

How accurate does the birth time need to be?

The houses turn with the Earth, passing roughly one house every two hours. In our calculations, a birth time one hour later moves at least one planet into another house in 99.9% of charts; even a 15-minute difference does it in 73.4%. So a sign can be read from your birthday alone, but houses need an accurate birth time. If you are unsure of yours, see Birth Time Correction.