Easy beginners guide to the Venus Retrograde from 2018 to 2036

Krisztina | Astro Witch’s Notes

09/02/2026

10–15 minutes

Easy beginners guide to the Venus Retrograde from 2016 to 2036

What Is Venus Retrograde?

Venus retrograde is the 40-day period when Venus appears to move backward through the sky. It happens approximately every 18 months and is the astrological transit most associated with relationship reassessment, the return of past connections, and a deep review of what you truly value. Unlike Mercury retrograde – which disrupts communication and logistics – Venus retrograde disrupts the heart.

Introduction

If Mercury retrograde is the one everyone complains about, Venus retrograde is the one everyone underestimates.

Mercury retrograde gets blamed for broken phones, delayed flights, and that text you sent to the wrong person. Fair enough.

But Venus retrograde? That is the transit that quietly dismantles the stories you have been telling yourself about love – who you want, why you want them, and whether the relationships you have built are actually built on what you think they are.

It happens less often than Mercury retrograde, lasts longer, and goes significantly deeper. It happens once every 18 months.

When it does, it turns the planet of love, beauty, and value backward.

This is the complete guide to what it actually means, what it does to your love life and finances, and every date you need to plan around from the past five years through 2036.

What Does Venus Actually Rule in Astrology?

Before understanding venus retrograde, you need to understand what Venus governs – because it is more than most people realize.

Venus Rules	What That Means in Practice
Love and attraction	Who you are drawn to and why
Relationships	How you behave in romantic partnerships
Beauty and aesthetics	Your sense of style, what you find visually appealing
Values	What you consider worth your time, energy, and money
Money and finances	Spending habits, your relationship with material things
Pleasure and desire	What brings you joy, sensory experience
Self-worth	How much you believe you deserve

Venus retrograde affects your entire value system – including your financial choices, your aesthetic preferences, and most importantly, the story you are telling yourself about what you deserve.

How Is Venus Retrograde Different From Mercury Retrograde?

This is the most searched question about this retrograde – and the comparison is useful for anyone new to astrology.

	Mercury Retrograde	Venus Retrograde
How often	3-4 times per year	Once every 18 months
How long	Approx. 3 weeks	Approx. 40-42 days
What it disrupts	Communication, technology, travel, contracts	Love, relationships, money, values, beauty
The classic symptom	Missed emails, tech failures, misunderstandings	Exes returning, relationship clarity, value reassessment
What to avoid	Signing contracts, launching projects, big tech purchases	Starting new relationships, making permanent love decisions, luxury purchases
What it is good for	Reviewing, revising, reconnecting	Reassessing what and who you value, honest relationship conversations
Most affected areas	Daily logistics and communication	The heart, finances, and sense of self-worth

Mercury retrograde disrupts the infrastructure of your daily life. Venus retrograde disrupts the infrastructure of your relationships and values. Both matter – but Venus retrograde tends to leave deeper marks because it reaches further into who you are.

What Actually Happens During Venus Retrograde?

It creates a consistent set of experiences across every cycle, regardless of which sign it moves through.

Relationships go one of two directions

During the retrograde, existing relationships either deepen through honesty or reveal fractures that were always there. The retrograde does not break healthy relationships – it simply makes the problems in fragile ones impossible to continue ignoring.

Past connections resurface

A retrograde period of any planet is a retrospective of that planet’s themes – like going into the deep, dark cave of oneself in whatever area of life is covered by that planet. For venus retrograde, that means love and connection from the past. Exes, former friends, people who mattered and drifted – they come back because retrograde energy specifically pulls what was once significant back into view.

Your values shift

When Venus appears to move backward in the sky, our values and connections do not go forward as usual – instead, we are invited to review, reassess, and realign. Choices that seemed acceptable before the retrograde begin to feel insufficient. Beauty standards you held without questioning get questioned. The way you spend money without thinking about it becomes visible. Venus retrograde is the moment when “good enough” stops feeling good enough.

Relationship clarity arrives

When Venus conjuncts the Sun during the retrograde, it brings a moment of clarity in relationships – a day when what has been blurry becomes suddenly clear. This happens around the midpoint of every Venus retrograde cycle and is considered the most significant single day of the transit.

Finances require attention

It governs money as well as love – specifically the emotional relationship you have with money and what you spend it on. Impulse purchases made during the retrograde often feel less satisfying once it ends. Financial decisions made during this period benefit from additional review before being finalized.

What Should You Do (and Avoid) During Venus Retrograde?

Do during Venus retrograde:

Have the honest relationship conversations you have been avoiding
Process feelings about past connections that resurface – feel them without immediately acting
Review your finances and spending patterns, especially around emotional purchases
Reconnect with yourself – your own values, your own aesthetic sense, your own standards for love
Journal about what you actually want from love versus what you have been settling for
Use the Venus-Sun conjunction (the midpoint of the retrograde) as a clarity checkpoint

Avoid during Venus retrograde:

Starting a completely new romantic relationship – connections begun in retrograde often require significant renegotiation once Venus goes direct
Making permanent relationship decisions at peak emotional intensity – wait until after direct
Major luxury purchases or new financial investments
Drastically changing your appearance (haircut, cosmetic procedures) – aesthetic preferences shift during retrograde, and the results often feel wrong once it ends
Rushing back into a past relationship purely because of the nostalgic pull – wait and see if the feeling is still real when Venus is direct

Every Venus Retrograde Date: 2018 to 2036

The cycles repeat approximately every 8 years in the same signs – which is why the 2026 retrograde in Scorpio echoes the 2018 one, and the 2034 one will echo them both.

Year	Venus Retrograde Dates	Sign	What the Cycle Echoes
2018	October 5 – November 16	Scorpio + Libra	Soul ties, intimacy, buried emotional patterns
2020	May 13 – June 25	Gemini	Communication in love, mental connection
2021-2022	December 19, 2021 – January 29, 2022	Capricorn	Commitment, long-term structures, career vs love
2023	July 22 – September 3	Leo	Self-expression, romance, confidence
2025	March 1 – April 12	Aries + Pisces	Independence vs surrender, identity in love
2026	October 3 – November 13	Scorpio + Libra	Soul ties, intimacy – completing the 2018 cycle
2028	May 10 – June 22	Gemini	Communication in love – completing the 2020 cycle
2029-2030	December 16, 2029 – January 26, 2030	Capricorn	Long-term commitment – completing the 2021-22 cycle
2031	July 20 – September 3	Leo	Self-expression and romance – completing the 2023 cycle
2033	February 27 – April 10	Aries + Pisces	Identity in love – completing the 2025 cycle
2034	September 30 – November 11	Scorpio + Libra	Soul ties – the next Scorpio cycle after 2026
2036	May 8 – June 20	Gemini	Communication in love

The eight-year pattern is one of the most useful tools in understanding venus retrograde – it tells you which emotional cycle you are inside and when it completes.

Venus Retrograde by Sign: What Each Placement Means

Every retrograde cycle has a unique character shaped by the sign it moves through. Here is what each sign placement emphasizes:

Venus retrograde in Aries:

The most self-focused cycle. Questions about your individual desires versus what your relationships ask of you. Themes of pursuing love versus letting it come to you. Independence and desire under review.

Venus retrograde in Taurus:

Venus is at home in Taurus – this retrograde asks the deepest questions about self-worth and what you genuinely find beautiful versus what you have been told to find beautiful. Financial patterns around security and comfort get reviewed.

Venus retrograde in Gemini:

Love and intellectual connection are inseparable in this cycle. Past connections that were based on mental chemistry resurface. How you communicate love – and whether what you say matches what you feel – comes under review.

Venus retrograde in Cancer:

Home, family, and emotional security in love become the focus. Past connections tied to family patterns resurface. The way early caregiving experiences shaped your adult love style becomes visible.

Venus retrograde in Leo:

Romance, self-expression, and whether you have been performing love rather than feeling it. The question of whether you love for an audience or for yourself. Creative relationships and partnerships under review.

Venus retrograde in Virgo:

Love expressed through service and how that has been received. Whether helpfulness has become a substitute for genuine intimacy. Health and daily routine in relationships reviewed.

Want to go deeper?

Read the astrology journal prompts for self-discovery and explore self-improvement tips by zodiac sign for the full picture.

Venus retrograde in Libra:

Partnership fairness, balance, and whether your closest relationships are genuinely equal. The social presentation of love versus its private reality. Aesthetic values and how they connect to self-worth.

Venus retrograde in Scorpio (2018 and 2026):

The most psychologically intense retrograde placement. Soul ties, buried emotional patterns, intimacy, power dynamics in love. What was never said, never resolved, never fully ended. The deepest version of the transit.

Venus retrograde in Capricorn:

Long-term commitment, the intersection of love and ambition, and whether your relationships have the structure they need to last. Financial partnerships and how love and security intertwine.

Venus retrograde in Sagittarius:

Freedom versus commitment in love. International or cross-cultural connections. Whether the philosophical values you hold about love match how you actually show up in relationships.

Venus retrograde in Aquarius:

Unconventional relationships, independence in love, and whether the relationships you have chosen actually fit the person you genuinely are versus the person you were expected to be.

Venus retrograde in Pisces:

The most romantic and boundary-dissolving placement. The difference between love and fantasy. Whether you are loving a person or an idea of them. Spiritual connection in relationships.

Venus Retrograde and Your Birth Chart

The area of your life most activated by any Venus retrograde depends on where the retrograde sign falls in your personal birth chart – specifically which astrological house Scorpio (or whichever sign the retrograde is in) occupies for your Rising sign.

This is why two people with the same Sun sign can have completely different venus retrograde experiences. One has Scorpio in their 7th house of partnership – the retrograde hits relationships directly. Another has Scorpio in their 2nd house – the retrograde hits finances and self-worth more than romantic love.

Want to go deeper?

Understanding your Rising sign is the fastest way to understand which area of your life any venus retrograde is activating. Find yours using your birth chart and then read how the transit falls in your specific houses.

The Venus Retrograde 8-Year Cycle: What It Means

It repeats in the same signs approximately every eight years – creating emotional cycles with clear beginnings, midpoints, and completions.

This year retrograde completing the cycle that began in 2018. Whatever was unresolved in your love life in the autumn of 2018 is arriving at its completion point now. It is a consistent pattern across every Venus cycle.

How to use the 8-year pattern:

Think back to the corresponding year eight years ago (2018 for the 2026 retrograde)
What relationship themes were active for you then?
What was unresolved, unspoken, or incompletely ended?
The 2026 venus retrograde is bringing that cycle to its conclusion – either through genuine resolution or through a clear ending that finally allows you to move forward

This eight-year lens makes the retrograde one of the most personally useful transits in astrology – not just a period to manage but a framework for understanding your entire relational history.

Why Venus Retrograde Actually Matters

Every 18 months, the planet of love turns backward and asks you the questions you have been too comfortable – or too scared – to ask yourself.

Who do you actually want?

Are your relationships actually reciprocal?

Do the things you are spending your time, energy, and money on reflect what you genuinely value?

The people who navigate Venus retrograde most effectively are the ones who use the transit for honest internal review rather than impulsive external action. They process it. They wait for Venus to go direct before making permanent decisions. And they come out the other side with a much clearer sense of what they actually want from love – and what they are no longer willing to accept.

For you

For the current retrograde in Scorpio, read the complete 2026 guide. If you want to understand how this transit connects to your personal chart, start with your Venus sign meaning. And if you are wondering about the ex who just texted – that guide is here.

FAQ: Venus Retrograde

What is venus retrograde in simple terms?

Venus retrograde is the approximately 40-day period when Venus appears to move backward from Earth’s perspective. Because Venus governs love, attraction, beauty, values, and money, these themes turn inward during the retrograde – creating a period of review and reassessment rather than forward momentum. It is less about things going wrong and more about the truth of your relationships and values becoming impossible to ignore.

How often does Venus retrograde happen?

This transit happens approximately every 18 months – significantly less often than Mercury retrograde, which occurs three to four times per year. This relative rarity makes Venus retrograde a more significant transit. Each cycle lasts approximately 40 to 42 days, with pre-shadow and post-shadow periods extending the total influence to approximately 15 weeks.

Does Venus retrograde always bring exes back?

Not always – but it is the transit most consistently associated with past connections resurfacing. The reason is that retrograde energy pulls back what was once significant. Whether an ex actually contacts you depends on the individuals involved, but the internal pull toward the past – the memories, the “what if” – is a consistent feature of every cycle.

When was the last Venus retrograde before 2026?

The most recent retrograde before 2026 was March 1 to April 12, 2025, in Aries and Pisces. Before that, July 22 to September 3, 2023, in Leo. The pattern of sign placements repeats approximately every eight years, meaning the 2026 Scorpio Venus retrograde echoes the 2018 cycle.

When is the next Venus retrograde after 2026?

The next Venus retrograde after 2026 is May 10 to June 22, 2028, in Gemini. This cycle echoes the May 2020 retrograde – completing the Gemini chapter of love themes around communication, intellectual connection, and mental chemistry in relationships.

What is the shadow period of Venus retrograde?

The shadow period is the window before and after Venus retrograde, when Venus passes over the same degrees of the zodiac it will retrograde through. The pre-shadow begins when Venus first crosses the degree it will later return to in retrograde. The post-shadow ends when Venus crosses the degree where it originally turned retrograde. For the 2026 retrograde, the pre-shadow began August 31, and the post-shadow ends December 15 – meaning the full influence lasts nearly four months.