May 1 zodiac sign
On May 1 the Sun stands at about 10° Taurus, right where the first decan hands over to the second, so Venus’s calm sign starts to take on Mercury’s careful, sorting eye.
Sun signTaurus
- Sun at 9°–13° Taurus
- 2nd decan · Mercury
May 1 in profile
Ten degrees into Taurus, the sign has finished its first rush of spring and settles into its typical shape: steady, sensual, slow to move and hard to shift once moving. May 1 sits on the seam between decans, and in most years the Sun has just crossed into the second, the Virgo decan ruled by Mercury. That adds a practical intelligence to Venus’s earth sign. A May 1 Taurus wants good things, and also wants to know exactly how they are made.
Ambition shows as a long plan kept mostly to themselves. They pick a goal, such as a house paid off or a skill brought to a professional standard, and then work at it in small daily amounts that others barely notice. Colleagues who sprint past them in the first year are often still changing direction in the fifth, while this Taurus is quietly where they said they would be.
First impressions run calm and a little reserved. At a party they find a good chair, a decent drink and one person worth talking to, and they ask precise questions instead of performing. Some people read the stillness as distance. The useful habit is to offer one personal detail early, a hobby or a recent project, so that the warmth others discover later arrives a bit sooner.
Taurus all day
In every year from 1930 to 2040 the Sun was in Taurus for the whole of May 1, in every time zone. This is not a cusp birthday: the nearest changes of sign fall around April 21 and May 20.
Your Moon sign depends on the year
The Sun is in the same place on May 1 every year; the Moon is not. It changes sign every two and a half days, so people who share this birthday can have any of the twelve Moon signs. Here is where it was on May 1 in recent years, from 00:00 to 23:59 UTC (an arrow means it changed sign during the day).
- 2017Cancer
- 2018Scorpio → Sagittarius
- 2019Pisces → Aries
- 2020Leo
- 2021Capricorn
- 2022Taurus
- 2023Virgo
- 2024Aquarius
- 2025Gemini → Cancer
- 2026Scorpio
Compatible signs for a Taurus
Sun-sign compatibility starts from the element. Taurus gets on most easily with its own element and with the two sextile signs, and feels the strongest pull from its opposite. For a May 1 birthday, in the Virgo decan, Virgo is a natural match. The full charts decide how a real pairing feels.
A gift for a May 1 birthday
A well-made tool for a craft they already practise, such as a good kitchen knife, a set of chisels or quality paints, chosen for how it feels in the hand.
Asked about May 1
What zodiac sign is May 1?
May 1 is Taurus in every year: the Sun is at about 9°–13° Taurus that day, in the sign’s 2nd decan.
Is May 1 a cusp birthday?
No. The Sun is well inside Taurus on May 1. The cusp days, when the Sun changes sign, fall around April 21 and May 20. Astrology has no blended cusp signs anyway: at any moment the Sun is in one sign.
What decan is May 1?
May 1 falls in the 2nd decan of Taurus. In the triplicity system we use, that decan belongs to Virgo and its ruler Mercury, which colours the Taurus Sun with a little of Virgo. In some years the Sun crosses into the next decan during the day.
Your birthday is only the Sun
A May 1 birthday tells you where the Sun was. The Moon, the Rising sign and eight more planets each sit somewhere of their own, and they depend on the year, the hour and the place. The free calculator shows all of them.