23 August to 22 September
Virgo occupies the arc from a hundred and fifty to a hundred and eighty degrees of ecliptic longitude. Its closing boundary is the September equinox, the Sun crossing the celestial equator southward, so this season ends on a dated astronomical event rather than at an arbitrary point.
Both edges alternate across a day, and the reason is that the calendar year is a whole number of days while the Sun's circuit is not. The shortfall of about six hours a year is repaid by each leap day, keeping the ingress inside a window some thirty six hours wide.
Mercury's earth sign, and its exaltation
Virgo is the only sign that a planet both rules and is exalted in: Mercury has the domicile, and its exaltation falls at fifteen degrees of Virgo, in the first week of September. That double claim has no parallel elsewhere on the wheel.
The mode is mutable, so the season closes a quarter of the year. Through the month the Sun's declination falls towards zero, the days shorten fastest in the northern hemisphere, and the whole stretch is a transition between the summer quarter and the autumn one.
What sidereal reckoning gives instead
An Indian chart puts these births in Leo for most of the range. Sidereal zodiacs count from the stars, tropical ones from the equinox, and precession has opened a gap of roughly twenty four degrees between the two starting points over about two thousand years.
Applied here, that offset moves sidereal Virgo to approximately the middle of September through the middle of October. Anyone below twenty four degrees of tropical Virgo lands in the preceding sidereal sign, and the difference is one of reference frames, not of accuracy.
Finer divisions, and what dates cannot supply
The decans split this month between the Sun, Venus and Mercury in ten degree bands, which is a real subdivision of the season and one that a date can actually establish.
What a date cannot establish is anything else. The Moon needs a time, the Ascendant needs a time and a place, and a birth near either edge of the range needs all three, since printed ranges were rounded to whole days and the crossings never fall on them. The result of that calculation is one sign, never a blend of two.
Questions people ask about this
What are the Virgo dates?
Approximately 23 August to 22 September. The exact start falls on 22 or 23 August and the end on 22 or 23 September, varying with the year and with the time zone the birth is dated in.
Why do the dates change from year to year?
Because the tropical year is not a whole number of days. The ingress slips about six hours later each year and is pulled back by each leap day, so it oscillates across roughly a day and a half.
When is Virgo season this year?
Within the range above, at a minute that has to be calculated for the specific year. Anyone born close to either edge needs the actual solar position rather than a table.
Why does Vedic astrology not make me Virgo?
It measures from the fixed stars rather than from the equinox, and the two references have separated by about twenty four degrees. That moves every sidereal boundary later by a little over three weeks.
Does being born on the first day of Virgo mean anything special?
It puts the Sun in the first degree of the sign, which matters for aspects and house placement. The tradition does not read it as a weaker or stronger version of the sign itself.