2016 Chinese Zodiac: Year of the Fire Monkey
2016 is the year of the Yang Fire Monkey. The Fire Monkey year runs from February 8th, 2016 to January 27, 2017. If you were born in 2016 on or after February 8, your Chinese zodiac sign is the Monkey and your element is Fire. Born earlier in January? You belong to the year before.
Born in January or early February 2016? Read this first
The Chinese zodiac year does not start on 1 January. The Fire Monkey year begins on February 8th, 2016. That one date changes the answer for everyone born in the weeks before it.
You were born before the new year turned, so you belong to 2015's sign — not 2016's.
Read the 2015 page instead →The rest of this page is yours. Everything below describes the Yang Fire Monkey.
This is the single most common mistake in Chinese astrology, and it is why two people born weeks apart in the same calendar year can have completely different signs.
What a Fire Monkey actually is
A Fire Monkey is someone born in a Monkey year that also carries the Fire element. In Chinese astrology your animal is your zodiac sign (it shapes who you are), and the element is the "energy flavour" running through it that year. So a Fire Monkey blends the Monkey's nature with Fire's energy of passion, warmth and visibility — a more specific portrait than the Monkey alone.
Fire in plain terms. Fire is the energy of summer — bright, expressive and impossible to ignore. It adds charisma, enthusiasm and the urge to connect and be seen.
They light up a room and pull people toward a shared excitement.
Unchecked Fire burns hot and fast — it can scatter, over-commit or burn out.
Monkey strengths and blind spots
Where you are strong. Monkeys are the zodiac's fastest problem-solvers. They see angles others miss, make unexpected connections, and are delightfully funny. They thrive in fluid, complex environments.
Where it costs you. Monkeys can be mischievous to the point of manipulation, scattered, and easily bored. Their cleverness can mask a reluctance to commit deeply.
Work that suits a Fire Monkey
Engineer, scientist, inventor, comedian, entrepreneur, programmer, journalist, diplomat.
Read that as a description of the conditions you do your best work in, not a list you have to pick from. Fire shapes how you work as much as the Monkey shapes what you are drawn to.
Who the Monkey gets on with
In the classical system the twelve animals fall into groups that support each other and pairs that grind. For the Monkey, the natural allies are Rat, Dragon and Snake, and the hardest work tends to be with Tiger and Pig.
Lucky colours, numbers and hours for the Fire Monkey
These belong to the Monkey as a sign, which means they are shared by everyone born in a Monkey year. A colour chosen for you works differently: it is picked to feed whichever of the five elements your own chart is short of, and two Monkeys can need opposite colours for that reason.
Other Fire Monkey years
The animal cycles every 12 years and the element every 10, so the exact pairing Fire Monkey only comes round once every 60 years. Anyone born in these years shares your sign exactly:
Your birth year is one pillar out of four
Everything above is true of you — and equally true of everyone else born in 2016. Millions of people share the Fire Monkey sign.
What separates your chart from theirs is the month, day and hour you were born. Those three add three more pillars to the one on this page. Together they decide whether your core element — the character at the centre of your chart, traditionally called your Day Master — is supported or drained, which of the five elements you are carrying too much of, which one is missing, and which ten-year cycle you are standing in right now.
That is the part a page about 2016 cannot know. It needs your birth time.
See your full chart, not just your year
Free, and it takes a birth date. Your Energy Chart reads all four pillars and shows the element balance behind them.
or browse every zodiac year →