Mercury Retrograde 2025: Dates, Signs & A Grown-Up Survival Guide

Dates use the ephemeris in Universal Time (UT); local dates may shift by a day.

• ✦March 15 – April 7, 2025 — begins in Aries, retrogrades back into Pisces. Fast-moving, impulsive; the review is about how you start things.
• ✦July 18 – August 11, 2025 — entirely in Leo. Ego, creative projects, and how you show up in public get a rewrite.
• ✦November 9 – November 29, 2025 — begins in Sagittarius, ends in Scorpio. Beliefs, contracts, and anything you'd rather not look at.

Each window is bracketed by a two-week "shadow" on either side — Mercury re-traversing the degrees it will (or just did) walk backward. Expect the themes to warm up early and settle late.

Mercury governs signals: speech, writing, contracts, short trips, small tech, small transactions. During retrograde these systems glitch more visibly — not because a planet has cursed you, but because your attention is being pulled back to what was skipped, unsaid, or half-finished.

It does not mean don't act. It means expect edits.

• ✦Communication misfires more often. Read the reply before sending.
• ✦Old contacts resurface. Sometimes worth answering; sometimes a closed door for a reason.
• ✦Devices, cars, and paperwork demand overdue maintenance.
• ✦Decisions made on incomplete information tend to get renegotiated.

A short, practical checklist that works every retrograde:

• ✦Review — audit a project, contract, or relationship you've been avoiding.
• ✦Repair — the thing you've been meaning to fix. Now.
• ✦Reconnect — one message to someone who mattered.
• ✦Rewrite — the CV, the pitch, the vows, the boundary.

Delay if you can: signing anything long-term, launching something publicly, buying electronics or vehicles, cutting your own hair with new scissors.

• ✦"Everything breaks." Confirmation bias. You just notice the misfires more.
• ✦"Never travel." Fine to travel; build in buffer time and back up your documents.
• ✦"Don't make any decisions." Make them — expect one round of revision.
• ✦"It affects everyone the same way." No. Which house Mercury moves through in your chart determines where you'll feel it. Air and earth signs (Gemini, Virgo, Libra, Capricorn) tend to notice it first because Mercury rules or exalts near them.