Venus sign compatibility compares two Venus signs to read how two people love. Most guides stop at elements. We went further and checked 800 years of sky, from 1600 to 2400. Three facts came out, and none of them is on other Venus pages.
First, two people picked at random share a Venus sign about one time in 12. Second, your Sun sign sets which Venus signs you can have. Venus is never more than about 47 degrees from the Sun, so each Sun sign gets only five Venus signs. Third, and this is the big one, opposite Sun signs never share a Venus sign. Not once in 800 years.
This page is the hub for our whole Venus series. It explains how Venus sign compatibility works, gives the odds for every kind of match, and links to all the pair pages we have written. It does not claim to predict how a couple will do. No one has shown that a sign can do that.
What is Venus sign compatibility?
Venus is the planet of love, beauty and pleasure in astrology. Your Venus sign is the zodiac sign Venus was in when you were born. It shows your style in love. It hints at what you find lovely, how you flirt, and how you like to be treated.
Venus sign compatibility puts two of these styles side by side. It asks how two ways of loving fit together. Your Sun sign shows what your life is built around. Your Venus sign shows what you enjoy and what you want from a partner. That is why many astrologers read Venus when the question is about love.
The idea is old. Ptolemy, the Greek astronomer who wrote the Tetrabiblos in the second century, gave Venus a large role in love and marriage. Vettius Valens, writing in the same age, tied Venus to friendship, desire and grace. William Lilly, in his 1647 book Christian Astrology, ties Venus to pleasure, love and good company. Modern writers such as Liz Greene and Stephen Arroyo read the Venus signs of two partners as a way to see what each one values.
For the full story of the planet itself, read our guide to Venus in astrology. For the twelve signs and their real dates, start with our page on the zodiac signs.
How to find your Venus sign
You need a birth date. A birth time helps only on the rare days when Venus changes sign. Look up the date in a table of planet positions, called an ephemeris, or in a free birth chart. Our page does not have a calculator, and we do not claim one.
There is a quick check you can do in your head. Your Venus sign is your Sun sign, one of the two signs next to it, or one of the two signs two steps away. It can never be any other sign. The next sections show why, and the share for each case.
Which Venus signs go well together?
Astrologers judge two Venus signs by how far apart they sit on the zodiac wheel. The wheel has twelve signs. Each gap has a name, called an aspect. An aspect is an angle between two points in the sky, and each one has a mood in the old books.
| Gap between the two Venus signs | Name | How astrologers read it |
|---|---|---|
| Same sign | Conjunction | The same taste in love, for better and for worse. |
| One sign apart | Semi-sextile | Next-door signs with nothing in common, so each one has to learn the other. |
| Two signs apart | Sextile | A friendly, easy link that needs a little effort. |
| Three signs apart | Square | Friction that can spark or grate. |
| Four signs apart | Trine | The same element, the easiest flow of all. |
| Five signs apart | Quincunx | Two styles that do not see each other well. |
| Six signs apart | Opposition | A strong pull between two poles. |
The element rule comes from the trine. Signs four apart share one of the four elements: fire, earth, air or water. Fire signs are Aries, Leo and Sagittarius. Earth signs are Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn. Air signs are Gemini, Libra and Aquarius. Water signs are Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces. Two Venus signs in one element share a way of loving, so the tradition calls it the smoothest match.
Ptolemy adds a second rule. In the first book of the Tetrabiblos, he calls signs one step or five steps apart disjunct. That means they do not see each other at all. Two Venus signs that sit side by side, or five apart, form no classical aspect. Modern writers still read them, but the old books give them no bond.
So which Venus signs go well together? By the tradition, the same element first, then sextiles and the same sign. Squares and oppositions bring more heat and more work. But a rule about signs is only the start. The next sections show that your Sun signs shift these odds a great deal.
How common is each Venus sign?
Venus does not move at an even pace. Seen from Earth, it runs forward, slows, stops, and goes backward for about six weeks every year and a half. That backward phase is called retrograde. It makes Venus stay longer in some signs than in others.
So we measured how much of the time Venus spends in each sign. We used 800 years, from 1600 to 2400, because the Venus cycle repeats about every eight years and drifts slowly. A short window of 50 or 60 years can reorder the list. Here are the long-run shares, with the rank each sign gives Venus in the old books.
| Venus sign | Share of time, 1600 to 2400 | Rank for Venus in Ptolemy and Lilly |
|---|---|---|
| Aries | 8.29 percent | Exile, or detriment. |
| Taurus | 8.59 percent | Home, or domicile. |
| Gemini | 8.46 percent | No major rank. |
| Cancer | 8.62 percent, the most common | No major rank. |
| Leo | 8.46 percent | No major rank. |
| Virgo | 8.41 percent | Fall. |
| Libra | 8.32 percent | Home, or domicile. |
| Scorpio | 8.11 percent | Exile, or detriment. |
| Sagittarius | 8.23 percent | No major rank. |
| Capricorn | 8.04 percent, the rarest | No major rank. |
| Aquarius | 8.16 percent | No major rank. |
| Pisces | 8.32 percent | Exaltation, a place of honor. |
The spread is small. The most common Venus sign, Cancer, beats the rarest, Capricorn, by less than one point. So no Venus sign is truly rare. What differs is the rank. Venus is at home in Taurus and Libra, the two signs it rules. It is honored, or exalted, in Pisces. It is in exile in Aries and Scorpio, the signs across from its homes. It is in fall in Virgo, across from Pisces.
A weak rank does not mean a weak lover. In the old books, rank tells you how easily a planet can act in its own way. Venus in exile still loves. It just loves in the manner of the host sign, such as the speed of Aries or the depth of Scorpio.
Your Sun sign limits your Venus sign
Venus orbits closer to the Sun than Earth does. So from Earth, Venus never strays far from the Sun. In our 800 years, the widest gap in the zodiac between the two was 47.3 degrees. A sign is 30 degrees wide. So Venus can sit in the Sun’s sign, one sign away, or two signs away, and nowhere else.
Here is the share for each case, across all Sun signs:
- Venus in the same sign as the Sun: 23.6 percent.
- Venus one sign ahead of the Sun: 29.2 percent.
- Venus one sign behind the Sun: 29.3 percent.
- Venus two signs ahead: 9.0 percent.
- Venus two signs behind: 9.0 percent.
So most people do not have Venus in their Sun sign. Close to six in ten have it one sign away. This table gives the five Venus signs for each Sun sign, with the share for each.
| Sun sign | Possible Venus signs, with their shares |
|---|---|
| Aries | Aquarius 9.1, Pisces 29.5, Aries 23.5, Taurus 29.5, Gemini 8.4 percent. |
| Taurus | Pisces 9.0, Aries 29.2, Taurus 24.4, Gemini 29.0, Cancer 8.4 percent. |
| Gemini | Aries 8.6, Taurus 30.0, Gemini 23.7, Cancer 29.5, Leo 8.2 percent. |
| Cancer | Taurus 8.7, Gemini 29.4, Cancer 24.1, Leo 29.3, Virgo 8.4 percent. |
| Leo | Gemini 8.5, Cancer 29.9, Leo 23.6, Virgo 29.3, Libra 8.7 percent. |
| Virgo | Cancer 8.8, Leo 29.1, Virgo 23.5, Libra 29.6, Scorpio 8.9 percent. |
| Libra | Leo 8.9, Virgo 29.2, Libra 23.5, Scorpio 29.0, Sagittarius 9.4 percent. |
| Scorpio | Virgo 9.2, Libra 28.8, Scorpio 23.3, Sagittarius 29.3, Capricorn 9.4 percent. |
| Sagittarius | Libra 9.3, Scorpio 28.5, Sagittarius 23.9, Capricorn 28.6, Aquarius 9.7 percent. |
| Capricorn | Scorpio 9.2, Sagittarius 29.2, Capricorn 23.2, Aquarius 28.8, Pisces 9.7 percent. |
| Aquarius | Sagittarius 9.4, Capricorn 28.8, Aquarius 23.2, Pisces 29.3, Aries 9.3 percent. |
| Pisces | Capricorn 9.2, Aquarius 29.3, Pisces 23.6, Aries 28.8, Taurus 9.1 percent. |
This rule helps when you read a partner’s chart. If you know their Sun sign, you know their Venus sign is one of five. You can rule out the other seven before you look anything up.
The rule breaks in one place: in a composite chart, Venus lands too far from the Sun in about 1 couple in 10, as our test of synastry vs composite charts shows.
Your Sun signs set the odds for your Venus match
Here is the main finding of this page. Since each Venus stays near its own Sun, two Venus signs follow the two Sun signs. The gap between your Sun signs sets the odds for the gap between your Venus signs.
We counted every mix of two birth moments across our 800 years. Then we sorted the pairs by how far apart their Sun signs were. For each group, we counted the share of pairs whose two Venus signs matched, formed a trine, formed a square, or stood opposite.
| Gap between your Sun signs | Same Venus sign | Venus signs in trine | Venus signs in square | Venus signs opposite |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Same Sun sign | 24.3 percent | 1.6 percent | 10.5 percent | Never. |
| One sign apart | 19.0 percent | 5.2 percent | 13.6 percent | Never. |
| Two signs apart | 12.8 percent | 12.8 percent | 19.1 percent | 0.8 percent. |
| Three signs apart | 5.2 percent | 19.0 percent | 24.3 percent | 5.2 percent. |
| Four signs apart | 0.8 percent | 25.1 percent | 19.0 percent | 12.8 percent. |
| Five signs apart | Never | 24.3 percent | 13.6 percent | 19.0 percent. |
| Opposite Sun signs | Never | 25.6 percent | 10.5 percent | 24.2 percent. |
| Any two people | 8.3 percent | 16.7 percent | 16.7 percent | 8.3 percent. |
Read the last row first. For two people picked at random, one pair in 12 shares a Venus sign. One pair in six has Venus signs in trine, and one in six has them in square.
Now look up. A couple with the same Sun sign shares a Venus sign about one time in four. That is three times the random rate. A couple with opposite Sun signs, such as Aries and Libra, can never share a Venus sign. Their Venus signs can never sit side by side either. The Aries Venus is always somewhere from Aquarius to Gemini. The Libra Venus is always somewhere from Leo to Sagittarius. The two ranges never touch.
The pattern holds all the way down. When two Sun signs form a square, the Venus signs form a square about one time in four. When two Sun signs form a trine, the Venus signs form a trine about one time in four. So Venus sign compatibility is not a second, separate test. It echoes the Sun match, with a wide blur.
This matters when you read a match. Two Leo Suns who both have Venus in Leo is not a rare sign from fate. It is the most likely single outcome for that pair. A Cancer and Capricorn couple with Venus signs in trine is not a quirk. Their Suns stand opposite, and a Venus trine turns up for about one such couple in four.
How many couples have a Venus trine or square?
A sign-based aspect is not always an aspect in degrees. Two Venus signs can be in trine by sign while the two planets sit 100 or 140 degrees apart. Astrologers use an orb, which is the allowed miss from the exact angle. A common orb for Venus is eight degrees.
So we measured the real angles too. For two people picked at random, the share within eight degrees of each exact aspect was:
- Conjunction, the same point: 4.5 percent of pairs.
- Sextile, 60 degrees: 8.9 percent of pairs.
- Square, 90 degrees: 8.9 percent of pairs.
- Trine, 120 degrees: 8.9 percent of pairs.
- Opposition, 180 degrees: 4.5 percent of pairs.
Put next to the sign counts, that is about half. One pair in six has Venus signs in trine, but only about one in eleven has a trine within eight degrees. With a tight orb of three degrees, the true trine falls to 3.4 percent, about one pair in 30. If a guide calls your Venus trine “rare,” it is not. If it calls a tight Venus trine rare, it has a point.
All Venus sign pairs, sign by sign
There are 78 ways to pair two Venus signs: 66 pairs of two different signs and 12 pairs of the same sign. Each of our pair pages takes one match and looks at it with fresh numbers. Find your own Venus sign in the left column. Then find your partner’s Venus sign in the same row. If your partner’s sign comes first in the zodiac, look in their row instead. A name without a link has no page yet.
| Your Venus sign | Your partner’s Venus sign |
|---|---|
| Venus in Aries | Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces. |
| Venus in Taurus | Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces. |
| Venus in Gemini | Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces. |
| Venus in Cancer | Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces. |
| Venus in Leo | Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces. |
| Venus in Virgo | Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces. |
| Venus in Libra | Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces. |
| Venus in Scorpio | Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces. |
| Venus in Sagittarius | Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces. |
| Venus in Capricorn | Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces. |
| Venus in Aquarius | Aquarius, Pisces. |
| Venus in Pisces | Pisces. |
The odds of any one pair are close to each other, since the twelve Venus signs are close to equal. For two people picked at random, a pair of two different Venus signs turns up about once in 68 to once in 77. Taurus with Cancer is the most common, at one pair in 67.5. Scorpio with Capricorn is the least common, at one pair in 77. A same-sign pair is rarer, since there is only one way to make it. Cancer with Cancer comes to one pair in 135. Capricorn with Capricorn is the rarest of all 78, at one pair in 155.
Keep the Sun rule in mind as you read. A pair page gives the odds for two strangers. For a real couple, your two Sun signs move those odds up or down, as the table above shows.
Venus compatibility in the old books
The old books did not rate Venus pairs the way magazines do. They looked at rank and rule. Two ideas from them still help.
The first is rulership. Each sign has a ruling planet, and Venus rules Taurus and Libra. A Venus in one of those signs is at home. The tradition says it can act in its own way, with no host to please. When two partners both have Venus at home, as in a Taurus and Libra Venus pair, both love styles run at full strength. That does not make them match. Taurus is earth and slow. Libra is air and social. The two sit five signs apart, a gap Ptolemy calls disjunct.
The second is sect, the split between day and night charts. In the Hellenistic tradition that Valens used, and that Chris Brennan explains in his 2017 book Hellenistic Astrology, Venus belongs to the night team. It works best in a chart born after sunset. Ancient sky-watchers also knew Venus as two stars: a morning star and an evening star. A morning-star Venus rises before the Sun and sits behind it in the zodiac. An evening-star Venus sets after the Sun and sits ahead of it. So in our Sun table, a Venus one sign behind the Sun is a morning star. A Venus one sign ahead is an evening star.
No single factor tells the whole story of a couple. That is sound advice for any Venus match, and the old authors would agree.
What this can and cannot tell you
Astrology is not a science. No study has shown that a sign predicts how a couple will fare. The largest test we know of is David Voas’s 2007 paper, Ten million marriages. He used the 2001 census of England and Wales, with about 10.3 million married couples. He found that Sun signs had no effect on who marries whom. Voas did not test Venus signs.
So read Venus sign compatibility as a lens, not a forecast. It can give two people words for how each one shows love. It cannot tell you whether you should be together. The odds on this page are odds about the sky, not about love.
Venus is also one voice among many in a chart. The Moon shows what makes you feel safe, and our guide to moon sign compatibility reads that layer. The Sun shows what a life is built around. Mars shows drive. A full reading weighs them all, along with the houses and the angles between planets.
Our guide to birth chart compatibility runs all five checks, and two strangers tick 3 of the 5 on average.
That full comparison is a synastry chart, where more than half of random pairs show a Venus and Mars aspect.
How we measured this
All positions are tropical, seen from the center of the Earth, on the true ecliptic of the date.
Route one used the open astronomy-engine library. We checked the Sun and Venus every two hours from 1 January 1600 to 1 January 2400. That is 3.5 million moments. At each one, we noted the Sun sign, the Venus sign, and Venus’s exact place to a tenth of a degree.
Route two used the Swiss Ephemeris, a different set of planet math. We sampled every three hours, with a one-hour offset from route one. That is 2.3 million moments. The two routes agree on every figure on this page to within 0.01 of a point.
We then checked the widest Sun and Venus gap against JPL Horizons, NASA’s own service. It fell on 9 December 1634, UTC. Our place for Venus that day matched Horizons to within 0.001 of a degree.
The couple odds come from pairing every moment with every other moment. They assume two people born at random, with no link between the two birth dates. Real couples are not drawn at random. They are born close in time, and birth rates change by month. So treat these figures as a guide to the sky, not a census.
Questions people ask
Which Venus signs go well together?
By the tradition, Venus signs in the same element match most easily. That means fire with fire, earth with earth, air with air, and water with water. Sextiles and same-sign pairs come next. For two people picked at random, one pair in six has Venus signs in trine. Add the pairs that share a Venus sign, and one pair in four has Venus in the same element.
Which signs is Venus friendly with?
Venus is at home in Taurus and Libra, and honored in Pisces. The old books say Venus acts most freely there. It is in exile in Aries and Scorpio, and in fall in Virgo. Those ranks describe the planet’s ease, not a person’s worth as a partner.
Who does Venus fall in love with?
Astrology gives no single answer. The tradition says Venus is drawn to what feels lovely in its own sign’s terms. A Venus in Taurus likes comfort, and a Venus in Gemini likes talk. Your pair page in the table above goes into your own match.
What are the odds that two people share a Venus sign?
For two people picked at random, about one time in 12. If you share a Sun sign, it rises to about one time in four. If your Sun signs are opposite, it never happens.
Can my Venus sign be far from my Sun sign?
No. Venus never strays more than about 47 degrees from the Sun. Your Venus sign is your Sun sign or one of the four signs closest to it.
Is there a Venus sign compatibility calculator?
This page does not have one. You need both birth dates and a table of planet positions to find the two Venus signs. Once you have them, the pair table above links to your match.
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