Mercury retrograde in October and November 2026: exact dates, shadow and what to review

Mercury turns retrograde on October 24, 2026 and goes direct again on November 13. That is twenty days, all of them in a single sign: Scorpio. It is the third and last one of the year; the other two were in Pisces (February 26 to March 20) and in Cancer (June 29 to July 23). The next one starts on February 9, 2027.

The dates

• October 4: Mercury enters its shadow zone, at 5°02′ Scorpio. That is the degree where it will stop at the end of the retrograde, and it starts covering it for the first time.
• October 24: it stations and starts moving backwards, at 20°59′ Scorpio (07:12 UTC; 3:12 a.m. in New York).
• November 4: inferior conjunction with the Sun: Mercury passes between the Earth and the Sun. It is the midpoint of the retrograde.
• November 13: it stations again and picks up speed, at 5°02′ Scorpio (15:53 UTC; 10:53 a.m. in New York).
• November 30: it leaves the shadow as it passes 20°59′ Scorpio again, the point where it had started moving backwards.

Counting the shadow, the whole period runs from October 4 to November 30: about eight weeks. The retrograde itself is the stretch in the middle. You can follow Mercury's position day by day in the sky today.

What it means for it to be retrograde

Mercury doesn't go backwards: it is a perspective effect. Mercury goes around the Sun in 88 days and the Earth in 365; it travels at about 48 kilometers per second, against about 30 for the Earth. Every so often, on its shorter orbit, it catches up with the Earth and passes it on the inside, between the Earth and the Sun. While it passes, seen from here, it seems to retrace its steps against the background of stars, and then it picks up its forward motion again. This time the backward stretch is about 16 degrees, from 20°59′ to 5°02′ Scorpio.

Astrology gives Mercury everything that has to do with words: messages, agreements, paperwork, short trips, learning and the way of thinking. When it is retrograde, the traditional reading is that those things ask you to go back over what has been done rather than start from scratch.

The shadow, before and after

The degrees between 5°02′ and 20°59′ Scorpio are the shadow zone: Mercury covers them three times, once going direct, once going backwards and once moving forward again. That is why the period feels longer than the three weeks of the retrograde.

The tradition usually says that in the pre-shadow the themes the retrograde will review come up, and that in the post-shadow they finish settling. It is not a rule: it is a way of ordering time.

In Scorpio

Scorpio is the sign of what is deep, of what is left unsaid and of what is shared: joint money, debts, intimacy, secrets. A Mercury retrograde there is associated with conversations that were left half-finished and are picked up again, with things that had been kept quiet and ask to be said, and with shared-money paperwork worth rereading. It is a reading from tradition, not a prediction.

From October 24 to November 13 Venus is also retrograde, and both stop and move forward again on November 13 (Venus, in Europe, already on the 14th). Mercury speaks and Venus values, and for those three weeks they coincide in reviewing what is said and what is wanted.

What is usually advised, and why

The classic advice is practical: reread before you sign, confirm bookings and schedules, back up what matters and, if you can, put off expensive tech purchases. The logic is that of any review period: what you do now tends to need corrections. If something can't wait, it doesn't wait.

What is usually recommended is whatever starts with "re": review, resume, rewrite, repair, reconnect with someone.

Where it falls in your chart

What this retrograde stirs in each person depends on the house of their birth chart where those degrees of Scorpio fall, between 5°02′ and 20°59′. If it is the 7th house, the theme is relationships and partnerships; in the 2nd, your own money; in the 10th, work. To know which, you need your birth time, because the houses come from it.

If you were born between October 28 and November 12, more or less (it varies by a day depending on the year), your Sun is right in that zone and you will feel this retrograde on your own Sun sign.

Calculate your birth chart with your date, time and place and see which house has those degrees.