The 12 animals

Year of the Goat: 2027 and every Goat year

After the Horse comes the Goat, also translated Sheep or Ram. Here is when the 2027 Goat year starts, and the dates of every Goat year.

Were you born in a year of the Goat?

Any date from 1901 to 2100.

Year starts at

"New year" is the lunar new year, the usual rule. "Feb 4 term" is Spring Commences, the rule of Four Pillars charts. Everything you enter stays in this browser: nothing is sent or stored.

Born July 1, 2003

Water Goat

Stem-branchGui-Wei 癸未, yin
Lunar birth dateday 2 of the 6th month, 2003
That lunar year: February 1, 2003 to January 21, 2004
All about the year of the Goat

The year of the Goat begins on Saturday, February 6, 2027, and ends on January 25, 2028, according to the 2027 conversion table of the Hong Kong Observatory. It is a Fire Goat year, Ding-Wei, the yin partner of the Fire Horse year that precedes it. The Goat is the eighth animal of the cycle and the sign of Wei, an Earth branch on the yin side. English has no settled name for it: the Chinese word yang covers goats and sheep, so calendars say Goat, Sheep or Ram for the same sign, and the US Postal Service has announced a Ram stamp for its series. Previous Goat years began on February 19, 2015 and February 1, 2003. Folk portraits make Goat people gentle, artistic and anxious; this page gives them as tradition, and the dates as facts.

How does tradition pair these two signs?

Goat and Rabbit

Triad (san he)

Goat triadRabbit, Pig
Goat oppositeOx

Folk tradition, not a prediction.

Compare two exact birth dates →

Dates read in the HKO tables by Radif Partners · Editorial policy · Method and sources

Goat, Sheep or Ram?

The character yang is used for goats, sheep and other horned grazers, and the zodiac does not say which one is meant. The Hong Kong Observatory writes goat in its tables, so this site does too. The US Postal Service, in its release for the Horse stamp of 2026, listed the Ram among the stamps still to come in its series. All three words name the Wei branch, and a person born in a Wei year can use whichever their family prefers.

Wei names the double hour from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. and the sixth lunar month, the hottest stretch of summer with the Great Heat term in late July. It is the Earth branch between the Horse and the Monkey.

Which animal is this year?

January and early February births may belong to the year before.

Lunar year starting in 2027

Fire Goat

StartsFebruary 6, 2027
EndsJanuary 25, 2028
Stem-branchDing-Wei 丁未
Yin or yangyin
Check an exact birth date →

The Fire Goat of 2027

The 2027 Goat combines Ding, the yin Fire stem, with Wei. The previous Fire Goat year began on February 9, 1967, and the next will begin in 2087. The page on the 2027 zodiac sets out what changes on February 6, 2027 and how the year ends, and the Chinese New Year 2027 page gives the festival dates.

The Goat in folk tradition

Tradition puts the Goat in a triad with the Rabbit and the Pig and pairs it in harmony with the Horse, which is why the Horse-Goat change of 2027 is a friendly one in almanacs. Its opposite is the Ox. Popular portraits stress kindness and a love of comfort; they are customs, not descriptions of real people.

The Goat at a glance

Branch, hour and month: Hong Kong Observatory. Pairings: folk tradition.
Earthly branchWei 未, number 8 of 12
Fixed element of the branchEarth, yin
Double hour (shichen)1 p.m. to 3 p.m.
Lunar month named by the branch6th month
Triad (san he)Rabbit, Pig
Harmony pair (liu he)Horse
Opposite sign (liu chong)Ox
Harm pair (liu hai)Rat
Next year of the Goat2027, from February 6, 2027

Every year of the Goat, with exact dates

Each line is one lunar year, from its new year to the eve of the next. Over sixty years the Goat comes back five times, once with each element: Metal, Water, Wood, Fire and Earth. A birth before the start date in that Gregorian year belongs to the Horse.

Lunar new year dates from the Hong Kong Observatory conversion tables, read on November 1, 2026.
YearSignStem-branchStartsEnds
1931Metal GoatXin-Wei 辛未Feb 17, 1931Feb 5, 1932
1943Water GoatGui-Wei 癸未Feb 5, 1943Jan 24, 1944
1955Wood GoatYi-Wei 乙未Jan 24, 1955Feb 11, 1956
1967Fire GoatDing-Wei 丁未Feb 9, 1967Jan 29, 1968
1979Earth GoatJi-Wei 己未Jan 28, 1979Feb 15, 1980
1991Metal GoatXin-Wei 辛未Feb 15, 1991Feb 3, 1992
2003Water GoatGui-Wei 癸未Feb 1, 2003Jan 21, 2004
2015Wood GoatYi-Wei 乙未Feb 19, 2015Feb 7, 2016
2027Fire GoatDing-Wei 丁未Feb 6, 2027Jan 25, 2028
2039Earth GoatJi-Wei 己未Jan 24, 2039Feb 11, 2040

Questions people ask

When is the next year of the Goat?

The next year of the Goat is the Fire Goat, which begins on February 6, 2027 and ends on January 25, 2028, according to the Hong Kong Observatory conversion tables. After it, the Goat returns in 2039 as a Earth Goat; the same element and animal meet again only in 2087.

When does the year of the Goat start in 2027?

On Saturday, February 6, 2027, the first day of the first lunar month in the Hong Kong Observatory table for 2027. The Fire Goat year lasts until January 25, 2028, and the Earth Monkey takes over the next day. Births in January 2027 and up to February 5 are still Fire Horses.

Which years were years of the Goat?

The recent ones are the Wood Goat of February 19, 2015 to February 7, 2016, the Water Goat of 2003, the Metal Goat of 1991, the Earth Goat of 1979 and the Fire Goat of 1967. Each began on a different date in late January or February, and the table on this page gives every Goat year since 1931 with its exact start and end.

Which signs does tradition pair with the Goat?

Folk tradition places the Goat in a triad with the Rabbit and the Pig, counted as the warmest match, and pairs it in harmony with the Horse. Its opposite, six years away, is the Ox, and its harm pair is the Rat. These pairings come from the positions of the branches on a circle and predict nothing about real couples.

Check next

Sign finder

Your animal, element and lunar birth date from your exact birth date, with the January and February boundary handled.

What sign am I?

Exact birth date in, sign out, with both start-of-year rules compared for January and February birthdays.

Compatibility

Two birth dates in: each sign and element, then how folk tradition pairs them, with where the rules come from.

Elements and the 60-year cycle

Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water: how each year gets its element, the 60 stem-branch names, and the benming year.

Year of the Rabbit

Fourth animal: Rabbit years with exact start dates, the Water Rabbit of 2023 and the Wood Rabbit of 2035.

Year of the Pig

Last animal of the cycle: Pig or Boar years with exact start dates, the Earth Pig of 2019 and the Metal Pig of 2031.

Tables and official pages behind this page

Written by

Independent publisher of a Chinese zodiac sign finder by exact birth date, built on the Gregorian-lunar conversion tables of the Hong Kong Observatory

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Chinese zodiac and lunar calendar 2026, dates read in the Hong Kong Observatory conversion tables, last checked on