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Tarot birth card calculator

Your birth cards are one to three Major Arcana cards worked out from your date of birth; your year card changes every year. Enter a birthday below. We show every step of the sum — and where the two popular methods disagree, we show both.

Worked out in your browser. The date isn’t sent anywhere or saved.

Pick a date to see your cards.

How the sum works

  1. Add the date

    Add the month, the day and the whole year. For April 13, 1975: 4 + 13 + 1975 = 1992.

  2. Reduce to 22 or less

    Add the digits of that total, and keep going until you reach 22 or less: 1 + 9 + 9 + 2 = 21. That number is your personality card — here, The World.

  3. One more step for the soul card

    If the personality number has two digits, add them: 2 + 1 = 3. That is your soul card — The Empress. If the number already had one digit, the same card plays both roles.

  4. The year card

    For a year card, add your birth month and day to the digits of the year you’re looking at, one by one: 4 + 13 + 2 + 0 + 2 + 6 = 27 → 2 + 7 = 9. Note the difference: here the year is split into single digits.

Why calculators disagree

There are two ways to add the year. Greer’s full-year method adds 1975 as one number. The split-year method, common on calculator sites, breaks the date into two-digit pieces instead. For April 13, 1975 that gives 04 + 13 + 19 + 75 = 111 → 1 + 1 + 1 = 3: The Empress alone, where the full-year method gave The World and The Empress.

The two methods never disagree about the soul card. The gap between their two totals is always a multiple of 9, and adding up digits never changes what’s left over when you divide by 9 — so both roads end on the same single digit. They only disagree about the personality card: for 37.1% of birthdays between 1940 and 2012, the two methods name different personality cards.

Some calculators also give every single-digit result a second card — a total of 8 becomes Strength and the Star — which is why you’ll read that “most people have two birth cards”. In Greer’s method a single-digit total is one card doing both jobs, and that is the most common result of all: 56.6% of birthdays.

We show Greer’s full-year result first, because it is the original and the one her books explain. When the split-year method gives a different personality card, it appears underneath. Neither is “correct” in any deeper sense: neither comes from the cards themselves.

Three results that work differently

One card, both roles

When the sum goes straight to a single digit, your personality and soul cards are the same card. The two-digit cards that share your number still belong to you: Greer reads them as a hidden factor, what you can’t yet see in yourself — not a flaw.

19: three cards

A total of 19 gives the Sun, which reduces to 10, the Wheel of Fortune, which reduces to 1, the Magician. No other total gives three. Under the full-year method 5% of birthdays land here; under the split-year method none do, because its totals never land on 19.

22: the Fool

The Fool is numbered 0 on the card, but in this arithmetic it stands at 22, after the World, and reduces to 4, the Emperor. Greer reads the pair as one unit rather than an outer and an inner card. 5.4% of birthdays get it under the full-year method; under the split-year method only a handful of dates at the turn of a century do.

One consequence worth knowing: the split-year method can never make the Sun or Judgement anyone’s personality card, and gives the World or the Fool on only 5 dates between 1900 and 2100 (January 1, 2000 is one of them) — its totals almost never climb past 18. The full-year method never gives the Magician on its own, only as the last step of 19 → 10 → 1.

How common each birth card is

Share of all birthdays from 1940 to 2012 that get each personality card, by method. The rarest cards are rare because very few dates add up to them, not because they mean anything special.

CardFull yearSplit year
1 The Magician—1.4%
2 The High Priestess1.4%2.7%
3 The Empress2.7%4.3%
4 The Emperor4%6%
5 The Hierophant10.5%7.3%
6 The Lovers10.8%8%
7 The Chariot10.3%8.2%
8 Strength9.1%8.7%
9 The Hermit7.7%9.8%
10 Wheel of Fortune6.1%9.8%
11 Justice4.6%8.4%
12 The Hanged Man3.1%6.8%
13 Death1.6%5.1%
14 Temperance0.6%3.8%
15 The Devil0.3%3.1%
16 The Tower0.8%2.9%
17 The Star2%2.4%
18 The Moon3.5%1.4%
19 The Sun5%—
20 Judgement5.1%—
21 The World5.3%—
22 · 0 The Fool5.4%<0.1%

The nine constellations

Every Major Arcana number reduces to a single digit from 1 to 9. Cards that share a digit form what Greer calls a constellation: one theme met at different stages. Your birth cards always come from a single constellation.

Where it stops

It isn’t read from the cards

Birth cards are numerology: the date decides the card before any deck is shuffled. That is a different thing from a reading, where the cards you draw answer the question you bring. Our readers don’t use your birthday.

It doesn’t settle who you are

A personality card names a theme you might recognise, not a verdict. If the Tower doesn’t sound like you, that tells you something too — and remember that the other method may give you a different personality card.

Deck order matters

We use the Rider–Waite numbering, where Strength is 8 and Justice is 11. In the older Marseille order the two are swapped, so if you read with a Marseille deck, those two cards trade constellations.

Questions people ask first

What is my tarot birth card?

Add your birth month, day and year (4 + 13 + 1975 = 1992), then add the digits until you reach 22 or less (1 + 9 + 9 + 2 = 21). That is your personality card — The World. If it has two digits, add them once more (2 + 1 = 3) for your soul card — The Empress. The calculator on this page does it for you and shows each step.

Why do different calculators give me different birth cards?

Because the year can be added as one number (1975) or split in two (19 + 75). The two methods always agree on your soul card, but give different personality cards for 37.1% of birthdays. Some sites also give every single-digit result a second card. We show Greer’s full-year result and, when it differs, the split-year one.

Can someone have three birth cards?

Yes, but only when the total is 19: the Sun, the Wheel of Fortune and the Magician. That happens to 5% of birthdays under the full-year method, and never under the split-year method.

What is a tarot year card, and when does it change?

It is worked out like a birth card, but with the digits of the year you are asking about instead of your birth year (4 + 13 + 2 + 0 + 2 + 6 = 27 → 2 + 7 = 9). It is usually counted from one birthday to the next, so it changes on your birthday, not on 1 January.

Can a birth card be a Minor Arcana card?

Not in this system. The sums are reduced to 22 or less so that they land on the 22 Major Arcana; the 56 Minor Arcana cards are never birth cards.

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