Is 2028 the Year of the Monkey or the Goat?
Both appear within Gregorian 2028. The Fire Goat lunar year continues through January 25; the Earth Monkey lunar year starts January 26.
Chinese zodiac 2028 · birth-date answer
Chinese Zodiac 2028: When Does the Earth Monkey Year Start?
The Earth Monkey lunar year begins January 26, 2028. For a birthday in 2028, January 1–25 is still the Fire Goat year; January 26–December 31 is Earth Monkey. This page uses the Lunar New Year boundary, as does our Chinese zodiac calculator. A Gregorian year by itself is not enough to settle an early-January birthday.
Check a birthday in 2028
Enter a Gregorian date in 2028. The comparison runs on this page; it does not send your birthday to a server.
Only the lunar-year animal and year-stem element are checked here. This is not a Four Pillars or birth-hour calculation.
Dates that test the rule
| 2028 Gregorian birthday | Answer | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| January 1 | Fire Goat | The 2028 lunar year has not started. |
| January 25 | Fire Goat | Last Gregorian day before the new lunar year. |
| January 26 | Earth Monkey | First day of the 2028 lunar year. |
| February 29 | Earth Monkey | Gregorian leap day is after the boundary. |
| June 2028 | Earth Monkey | The leap fifth lunar month stays inside the same lunar year. |
| December 31 | Earth Monkey | Still within the 2028 lunar year. |
These rows are applications of a single published calendar boundary, not six independent horoscope predictions. For a January 2029 birthday, compare its date with the 2029 Observatory table rather than extending the Gregorian 2028 row.
Why 2028 has two kinds of “extra” date
In 2028, the Gregorian calendar includes February 29. The Observatory's Chinese calendar also labels a leap fifth lunar month later in the year. These are different calendar rules. Neither starts a new animal year: the Earth Monkey year begins once, on January 26, and the added dates fall inside it.
This distinction matters when a birthday is written with a lunar month number. A repeated lunar month needs its leap-month label to identify the lunar date. This page asks for a Gregorian birth date and returns only the year animal; it does not convert a handwritten lunar birthday.
Quick answers
What type of Monkey is 2028?
It is the Earth Monkey, also labeled Wu-shen in the Observatory's 2028 table. “Earth” is the year-stem element here; it is not a full personal element reading.
Does February 29 change a 2028 zodiac sign?
No. February 29 follows the January 26 lunar-year change, so a birth on that day is Earth Monkey under this page's rule.
Does the leap lunar month create a second Monkey year?
No. The leap fifth month is an additional month within the Earth Monkey lunar year, not a new year boundary.
Watch the 37-second date explanation
The video uses the same Observatory calendar as the table above.
Method, sources, and limits
We compared complete Gregorian dates with the Hong Kong Observatory's 2028 Gregorian–lunar calendar. That calendar names 2028 Wu-shen, the Monkey year, places the first lunar month on January 26, and shows the leap fifth month. The 2027 table names the preceding Ding-wei Goat year. The Smithsonian's 2028 Monkey guide independently names the Earth Monkey and January 26 date.
The date checker follows our site's Lunar New Year convention. Some Four Pillars traditions use Start of Spring or time-of-birth adjustments; those are separate calculations and are not performed here. For another year, use the main calculator; for the prior year, see our 2027 Fire Goat page.