the year 2026
Mercury retrograde 2026: exact hours, not “somewhere in late February”
Three periods this year. Here is exactly when each begins and ends — to the hour, and here is where those hours come from.
Mercury does not turn around. It moves forward exactly as it did yesterday — Earth simply overtakes it on the inside track, and against the stars it appears to fall back for a few weeks. Just like a car you are passing seems to slide backwards.
Mercury stations in 2026, GMT
- retrograde from26 February, 06:46 · ♓ 22°34′
- direct from20 March, 19:38 · ♓ 8°29′
- retrograde from29 June, 17:42 · ♋ 26°16′
- direct from23 July, 22:47 · ♋ 16°19′
- retrograde from24 October, 07:08 · ♏ 20°58′
- direct from13 November, 15:53 · ♏ 5°02′
Where these hours come from
A station is the instant apparent motion changes sign. We take Mercury’s longitude half a day before and half a day after every hour of the year, find where the difference crosses zero, and narrow the moment by bisection. The same figures were checked against an independent ephemeris: agreement within ten minutes on all six stations.
And honestly about the rest
No peer-reviewed study has shown any effect of Mercury retrograde on electronics, travel or communication. The one peer-reviewed paper that tested such a hypothesis directly — on stock market data, Murgea 2016 — found no support. The dates above are real. What to do with them is everyone’s own business.
A curious physical detail: retrograde weeks are exactly when Mercury is closest to Earth. Even at that distance its pull on you is weaker than that of the building you walk past every day.
And what was the sky at your minute
The same computation works for the date and time you were born. The first three readings are free, no account needed.