Your tarot year card is a Major Arcana card for one year of your life, found from the month and day of your birthday and the year you are looking at. The tool works it out by Mary K. Greer’s method, shows each step, and lists the cards of the next nine years. Each card runs from your birthday in that year to the day before your next birthday.
How it works
Greer, who made birth cards and year cards widely known in her books on tarot, adds a date as whole numbers and then adds the digits of the total. For a year card the date is your birthday in the year you choose:
- Add the month, the day and the year. For a birthday on 17 March, in 2026: 3 + 17 + 2026 = 2046.
- Add the digits of the total. 2 + 0 + 4 + 6 = 12. If the result were above 22 you would add its digits again, because the Major Arcana has 22 cards; 22 itself is The Fool, which is also numbered 0.
- Read the card. 12 is The Hanged Man.
- Reduce a two-digit number once more for its single-digit root: 1 + 2 = 3, The Empress. The tool shows both, the card the sum gives and its root.
The cards follow the Rider-Waite-Smith numbering used on this site, in which Strength is 8 and Justice is 11.
Reading the result
The result names the year card and its root, shows the sum, and gives the meaning of each card from its guide on this site, with links to the full guides. A table shows the cards for the next nine years: the single-digit roots move through a cycle of nine, which is why readers talk of nine-year cycles. If you look at the current year before your birthday, the tool reminds you that last year’s card still applies until then.
Read the card as a theme for the year, a question to carry with you, not as a forecast. A card that looks hard, such as The Tower, is read by experienced readers as change, not as a warning.
Where traditions differ
Some writers add every digit of the date one by one instead of adding the month, day and year as numbers. For 17 March 2026 that gives 1 + 7 + 3 + 2 + 0 + 2 + 6 = 21, The World, instead of The Hanged Man. Our tarot birth card tool counts that way for its card of the year. The two counts always end on the same single-digit card, but the first card can differ: across every birthday and every year from 1900 to 2100 they gave the same first card 46.4 percent of the time. When they differ, the tool shows both.
Greer’s year card runs from one birthday to the next, and this tool counts it that way. A published summary of her later book, Archetypal Tarot (Weiser, 2021), reports that it adds a nuance: for birthdays from 1 January to 30 June, the year is more likely to be felt from one January to the next. If your birthday falls in the first half of the year, you may like to read the card from 1 January as well.
What it does not do
It does not need or use your year of birth, and it does not predict events. A 29 February birthday is counted as 29 February in every year, since the sum uses the date as written.
Frequently asked questions
↳ How do I find my tarot year card?
Add the month and day of your birthday to the year, as whole numbers, then add the digits of the total. Reduce again while the result is above 22, and take the Major Arcana card with that number, counting 22 as The Fool. The tool does the sums and shows each step.
↳ When does my year card change?
On your birthday, by Greer's method, which this tool follows. The card for 2026 runs from your birthday in 2026 to the day before your birthday in 2027, so in the months before your birthday the previous year's card still applies. A summary of Greer's later book, Archetypal Tarot (2021), reports that for birthdays from January to June the year is more likely to be felt from 1 January.
↳ Why does another site give me a different year card?
Usually because it adds every digit of the date one by one instead of adding the month, day and year as numbers. The two counts can give a different first card but always the same single-digit root. The tool shows the other count when it differs.
↳ What is the difference between a year card and a birth card?
A birth card uses your year of birth and stays the same for life. A year card uses the year you are looking at, so it changes each birthday. Our birth card tool finds the birth card.
↳ Why do the cards repeat every nine years?
The single-digit root of a number goes up by one, from 9 back round to 1, each time the number itself goes up by one, so as the years pass the root steps through 1 to 9 in turn. The first card can differ from one cycle to the next, but its root follows the cycle.
↳ Does the year card predict what will happen?
No. It is a theme for reflection from a modern tradition of tarot numerology. No card is a promise or a warning.