Best Zodiac Matches (and the Worst)

In Western sun-sign astrology the best matches are two signs of the same element that sit four signs apart, a trine, such as Aries and Leo; the tradition has no single soulmate pair, and every trine pair shares the top rating.

To rate any two signs, your own included, use the two-sign selector on the zodiac page. It gives the same rating the list below is built from.

Which zodiac signs are the best matches?

The best zodiac matches are signs of the same element that sit four signs apart: fire with fire, earth with earth, air with air and water with water. The list below starts with every pair the tradition rates highest on this site and works down to the lowest. Each row gives the reason for its place: the angle between the two signs and their elements. Pairs on the same rating share a place, and nothing on this page ranks one of them above another.

Why do so many zodiac pairs tie at the top?

Because the rating adds up three parts, and every trine pair has the same three. The first part is the angle between the two signs, and a trine is the angle the tradition reads as the easiest. The second is the elements, and a trine always joins two signs of one element. The third is the modality, cardinal, fixed or mutable, and the two signs of a trine always differ in it. Same parts, same total.

The tradition does not rank one trine above another, and neither do we. A top ten would need a tie-break the rules do not contain. The same goes for the question of the top three signs: there is no top three, because a rating belongs to a pair of signs, and every sign has two trine partners.

What are the next best zodiac matches?

The next group holds two kinds of pair. The first is the sextile: two signs two places apart, which always joins fire with air or earth with water, the elements the tradition calls complementary. The second is each sign with itself, the conjunction. Two people of one sign share their element, but they share their modality too, and a shared modality is the one part the rating does not reward. The list shows every pair in both groups, and below them the ratings fall toward the other end of the scale.

Which zodiac signs are least compatible?

The least compatible zodiac signs, in the tradition, are the squares: two signs three places apart. They share a modality but sit in elements the tradition does not pair, such as fire with water or earth with air. The tradition reads a square as friction, two signs pushing in the same way from different elements. The bottom of the list above names every square pair.

A low rating is the tradition's reading of two sun signs, not a fact about two people, and it says nothing about how a particular couple treat each other. The best-known controlled test of astrology, published in Nature in 1985, found that astrologers could not match birth charts to personality profiles better than chance.

Which two zodiac signs are soulmates?

The tradition does not name one soulmate pair: the pairs it rates highest are the trines, two signs of the same element, and "soulmates" is a name people give that top tier. Ask which zodiac signs should marry and the answer is the same top tier; the tradition's marriage reading has its own page, and it uses the same rating.

For two real people, the soulmate calculator goes further than two signs. The soulmate calculator by date of birth reads both birth dates and works out each person's sun sign and life path number. It then says whether the tradition calls the pair a soulmate pairing, a growth pairing or a slow build. That verdict is what one tradition calls a pairing. It is a reading, not a promise about how two lives turn out.

What are perfect couple zodiac signs?

"Perfect couple zodiac signs" is a popular name for the same top tier: two signs of one element, a trine apart. No pairing is perfect for anyone, because the rating reads two signs and not the two people born under them. If "perfect" is one label people reach for, "fake" is another, and the question at the foot of the page takes it up.