Lunar New Year Cutoff

What it is

The Chinese zodiac year does not start on January 1. It starts on the lunar new year, a date that moves between late January and mid-February depending on the year — for example, Chinese New Year 2023 fell on January 22. Anyone born before that date in a given Gregorian year still belongs to the previous animal by the traditional lunar reckoning, even though the calendar year has already changed.

Most casual "what's my Chinese zodiac sign" tools skip this and just use (birth year − 4) mod 12, which is correct for the large majority of the year but wrong for people born in that January–February window.

Worked example

Someone born January 20, 2023 — two days before that year's lunar new year — is technically a Tiger (2022's animal) by the true lunar calendar, not a Rabbit (2023's animal). A tool that only looks at the Gregorian year "2023" would tell them Rabbit and be wrong for their exact birth date.

How Mystica computes it — and where the approximation is

Mystica's evergreen Chinese Zodiac profile pages are keyed by year, not by exact date, so they use the conventional Gregorian-year approximation described above — the same one most reference sites use for a year-level page, and a stated decision rather than an unnoticed bug. A reader whose birthday falls in that January–early-February window should treat their profile page as one year off from the true lunar reckoning, and can check their exact cutoff date for their birth year before relying on the animal label for anything more than entertainment.