Enter your birth details above and this free Sade Sati calculator tells you plainly whether Sade Sati is running for you today, and lists every Sade Sati phase of your life, rising, peak and setting, with start and end dates. It also gives the dates of Kantaka Shani and Ashtama Shani, and says if a classical mitigation applies to your chart. Sade Sati is the roughly seven and a half year stretch when Saturn transits the sign before your natal Moon, your Moon’s own sign, and the sign after it. The calculator finds your Moon’s sidereal sign and builds the whole sequence from it.
How this calculator works
Your Moon and Saturn are placed in your own browser by our ephemeris, using the Lahiri ayanamsa. The form takes a birth year from 1900 to the present year. Both planets are read from tables calculated from NASA JPL DE440, which agree with it to within a few seconds of arc and cover 1899 to 2075, so every birth date is inside them. Saturn dates after 2075 come from a compact series and are a few days less certain; a note under the result says when that happens. The time zone in force at your birth place on your birth date, including daylight saving, is applied automatically. The working is done in your browser. Once your email is confirmed, the birth details you enter and the headline of the result are kept with it, so that our emails can fit your chart (see the privacy policy).
From your Moon’s sign, the calculator tracks every time Saturn transits the sign before it (the rising phase), the sign itself (the peak) and the sign after it (the setting phase), plus two related transits: Kantaka Shani, Saturn in the fourth sign from your Moon, and Ashtama Shani, the eighth. Each period gets a start and end date, including the brief retrograde re-entries where Saturn crosses back over a sign boundary before moving on for good. It also checks two classical mitigations: Saturn in its own sign or exalted during the transit, and a Taurus or Libra ascendant, for which Saturn is a yogakaraka and behaves more favourably than usual.
Each date is the moment Saturn changes sign, taken from the same NASA JPL DE440 tables, so it is right to the day. All 147 sign changes of Saturn from 1900 to 2074 were checked against the Swiss Ephemeris, including the short returns into a sign when Saturn turns retrograde, and every one agreed to within a day. Without a birth time, the calculator uses midday and warns you if the Moon changed sign on your date of birth, since that changes what the whole calculation is built on.
Reading your result
The result names your current phase, if any, and lists the full sequence for your lifetime. Rising, Saturn in the sign before your Moon, is generally the mildest. Peak, Saturn crossing your Moon’s own sign, draws the most attention. Setting, Saturn in the sign after, is usually read as release. Kantaka Shani and Ashtama Shani are shown separately, since they are their own transits, not a fourth and fifth phase.
If either mitigation above applies to your chart, the calculator says so, and the period is traditionally read as considerably softer. At any moment about a quarter of all people are in Sade Sati (three signs out of twelve), and about four in ten if Kantaka and Ashtama Shani are counted, so a period showing on your result is ordinary, not a sign that something has gone wrong.
Where traditions differ
Every serious source agrees on the three signs that form the main sequence. Two things are genuinely argued about. First, whether Kantaka Shani and Ashtama Shani belong under the Sade Sati name at all, since several authorities treat them as their own category of difficult transit rather than a fourth and fifth phase, and this calculator lists them separately, under their own names. Second, some traditions hold that the Moon’s exact degree within its sign changes the story, the first phase reading harder in the early degrees and the third phase harder in the late degrees, while other schools apply no such refinement. We show the dates; how much weight either point deserves is not something we settle for you.
What it cannot tell you
This calculator times a transit. It does not tell you how strong your Moon is otherwise, what else is running in your chart during the same years, or what the period will mean for you personally, and it makes no prediction about specific events. Beyond the two mitigations above, it cannot weigh other protective factors, a well-placed Jupiter or benefic aspects on the Moon among them. For those, and for how this transit sits alongside your dasha, see the full chart at the free kundali tool.
None of this is a reason for alarm. Sade Sati is a period of maturing and pressure, not a curse, and most people pass through it two or three times in a lifetime.
Frequently asked questions
↳ What is Sade Sati and how long does it last?
Sade Sati is the roughly seven and a half year period when Saturn transits the sign before your natal Moon, your Moon's own sign, and the sign after it, one sign at a time. Each phase lasts about two and a half years, a little more or less depending on retrograde re-entries.
↳ How do I know which phase of Sade Sati I am in?
Enter your birth date, time and place above. The calculator works out the full list of rising, peak and setting phases for your lifetime from your Moon's sidereal sign, and checks today's date against it, so it can tell you directly whether one is running now.
↳ Is Sade Sati always a difficult time?
No. It is a period of maturing and pressure, not a curse, and about a quarter of all people are in it at any given time. Classical mitigations also apply: Saturn in its own sign or exalted during the transit, or a Taurus or Libra ascendant, traditionally soften the period considerably.
↳ What is the difference between Sade Sati and Kantaka Shani or Ashtama Shani?
Sade Sati, strictly, is the three consecutive phases: Saturn in the twelfth, first and second sign from your Moon. Kantaka Shani, the fourth, and Ashtama Shani, the eighth, are separate transits that some traditions group alongside Sade Sati and others treat as their own category. This calculator lists the two smaller ones separately, under their own names.
↳ Do I need my exact birth time for this calculator?
Not strictly. Sade Sati depends on your Moon's sign, which rarely needs a precise time to identify. Without a birth time, the calculator uses midday and tells you if your Moon changed sign on your date of birth, the one situation where the time genuinely matters.
↳ Which Moon signs have Sade Sati in 2026 and 2027?
Saturn has been in sidereal Pisces since 29 March 2025, so through 2026 Sade Sati runs for Aquarius Moons (setting), Pisces Moons (peak) and Aries Moons (rising). Saturn first enters Aries on 3 June 2027, returns to Pisces on 20 October 2027 and settles in Aries on 23 February 2028, when Taurus Moons are in it and Aquarius Moons are released. Our Sade Sati 2026 to 2027 guide has the full table.
↳ When will my Sade Sati end?
The calculator lists every phase of your life with its start and end dates, and the end of the setting phase is the end of your Sade Sati. When Saturn crosses back over a sign boundary while retrograde, the short return is listed too, so you can see the true last day.
↳ How many times does Sade Sati come in a lifetime?
Saturn takes about twenty-nine and a half years to go round the zodiac, so Sade Sati comes back about every thirty years. Most people pass through it two or three times, and the calculator lists every one in your lifetime with its dates.
↳ What helps during Sade Sati?
The tradition puts practice before purchase: keeping commitments and steady work, a small Saturday discipline, the Shani mantra or the Hanuman Chalisa, and giving to those who do hard manual work. A blue sapphire comes last, only after a full chart reading, so talk to an astrologer before buying one. None of this is needed for the transit to pass.
For the whole birth chart alongside this transit, planetary strength, yogas and doshas included, use the free kundali tool. If you would like to talk through what a phase means for your own chart, see consultation.