Free BaZi Calculator: Your Four Pillars and Day Master
Enter your birth date, time and place. You get your year, month, day and hour pillars, the hidden stems inside each, your Day Master and a count of the five elements. Below the calculator: what each part means and how the chart is worked out.
Calculate your BaZi chart
Free, with no sign-up. The chart is worked out in your browser, and your birth details are not sent to Oracate.
What is BaZi?
BaZi (八字, "eight characters"), also called the Four Pillars of Destiny, is a Chinese system for reading a person's character and timing from the moment of birth. It records that moment as four pairs of characters, one pair each for the year, month, day and hour. Each pair is a heavenly stem on top and an earthly branch beneath, and every character belongs to one of the five elements: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal or Water.
BaZi is a traditional system, not a scientific one. Read the chart as a framework for reflection and planning, not as a forecast. The calculation itself is exact, though: it follows the calendar and the sun, so two careful calculators should agree on your pillars.
The four pillars, one by one
- Year pillar 年柱
- Set by Li Chun (立春), the start of spring in early February, not by 1 January or Lunar New Year. Traditionally read as your roots, family and early life.
- Month pillar 月柱
- Set by the twelve solar terms (節) that open each BaZi month, so months start around the 4th to 8th of each Gregorian month rather than on the 1st. It carries the season you were born in, which BaZi treats as the most weighty part of the chart.
- Day pillar 日柱
- Set by a sixty-day cycle that runs without a break, so every date has one. Its stem is your Day Master. Its branch is traditionally read as your closest relationships.
- Hour pillar 時柱
- Set by the two-hour period of your birth, twelve to a day, starting at 23:00. Traditionally read as your later life and what you produce.
Each branch also hides one to three stems. A Tiger, for example, holds Wood, Fire and Earth. The calculator lists these hidden stems under each pillar, strongest first.
How to read your Day Master
In BaZi the Day Master stands for you. The other seven characters are read as what surrounds it: what supports it, what it produces, what it controls and what controls it. Each of the ten stems has a classical image, listed below. Find yours in your result above, or in the day pillar's top character.
甲Jia, Yang Wood
a tall tree
Jia is the oak or the pine: upright, growing toward the light, slow to bend. BaZi reads this Day Master as a natural starter and a builder of things meant to last.
乙Yi, Yin Wood
a vine, flower or grass
Yi is the plant that finds its way around obstacles. Where Jia stands firm, Yi adapts, and BaZi reads this Day Master as resourceful, gentle in manner and persistent underneath.
丙Bing, Yang Fire
the sun
Bing is the midday sun: open, warm and visible to everyone. BaZi reads this Day Master as generous and expressive, a person who lights up a room and wants others to do well.
丁Ding, Yin Fire
a candle or lamp flame
Ding is a lamp in a dark room: smaller than the sun, but focused and steady. BaZi reads this Day Master as perceptive and inward, with warmth that is given deliberately.
戊Wu, Yang Earth
a mountain
Wu is the mountain or the city wall: large, stable and hard to move. BaZi reads this Day Master as dependable and slow to commit, but steadfast once it has.
己Ji, Yin Earth
farmland or garden soil
Ji is cultivated soil: it receives, nourishes and lets things grow. BaZi reads this Day Master as caring and practical, shaping itself to what the people around it need.
庚Geng, Yang Metal
an axe, sword or raw ore
Geng is unrefined metal: strong, direct and made for cutting through. BaZi reads this Day Master as decisive and loyal, with a clear sense of right and wrong.
辛Xin, Yin Metal
a jewel or fine blade
Xin is worked metal: polished, precise and easily marked. BaZi reads this Day Master as discerning and refined, with high standards for itself and for the work it does.
壬Ren, Yang Water
the ocean or a great river
Ren is moving water on a large scale: wide, deep and always heading somewhere. BaZi reads this Day Master as adventurous and adaptable, with a mind that takes in a great deal.
癸Gui, Yin Water
rain, mist or a spring
Gui is quiet water: dew, rain or a spring that seeps into everything. BaZi reads this Day Master as intuitive and reflective, working gently and often out of sight.
A Day Master is a starting point. Whether it is strong or weak depends on the season of birth and on how much of the chart supports it, so two people with the same Day Master can read quite differently.
Reading the five element balance
The five elements work in two cycles. In the producing cycle, Wood feeds Fire, Fire makes Earth, Earth bears Metal, Metal carries Water and Water nourishes Wood. In the controlling cycle, Wood parts Earth, Earth dams Water, Water quenches Fire, Fire melts Metal and Metal cuts Wood.
Counting how often each element appears shows what your chart has plenty of and what it lacks. A missing element is not a flaw in itself. In BaZi it is something to notice, because the years and months that bring it will meet your chart differently.
How this calculator works
- Year and month pillars turn at the exact minute of each solar term, which the calculator reads for your birth instant. A birth in New York at 20:50 on 3 February 2027 falls after Li Chun, which arrives at 09:46 on 4 February in Singapore and China, so it belongs to the new year.
- Your birthplace sets the time zone. The offset in force on your birth date, including daylight saving and old zone changes, comes from the time zone database in your browser.
- Day and hour pillars follow the clock where you were born, unless you turn on true solar time. The two-hour windows start at 23:00, 01:00, 03:00 and so on.
- The calendar maths comes from lunar-javascript, the open-source lunar calendar library that Oracate's readings also use.
Curious about the year ahead? See the Chinese zodiac 2027 forecasts, which also separate your zodiac animal from your BaZi year animal.
Questions
What does a BaZi calculator work out?
It turns your birth date, time and place into your Four Pillars: the year, month, day and hour of your birth, each written as a heavenly stem and an earthly branch. That makes eight characters (八字, bazi), from which your Day Master and the balance of the five elements are read.
What is a Day Master?
Your Day Master (日主) is the heavenly stem of your day pillar. It is the element and polarity that BaZi treats as you, and the other seven characters are read in relation to it. There are ten: Yang Wood, Yin Wood, Yang Fire, Yin Fire, Yang Earth, Yin Earth, Yang Metal, Yin Metal, Yang Water and Yin Water.
Do I need to know my birth time?
Not for the year, month and day pillars, so you still get your Day Master. The hour pillar needs a birth time, and without it the chart has six characters instead of eight. One exception: if you were born on a day that holds a solar term, the year or month pillar can depend on the hour, and the calculator shows both possibilities.
Why is my BaZi year different from my Chinese zodiac animal?
The Chinese zodiac animal changes at Lunar New Year, which falls between 21 January and 20 February. The BaZi year changes at Li Chun (立春), the start of spring, around 4 February. If you were born between the two dates, your animal and your BaZi year pillar differ. The calculator uses Li Chun, to the minute.
Which time zone and place should I choose?
Choose the place whose clock you were born under, and enter the time as it was on that clock, including daylight saving if it applied. The calculator reads the zone's historical offset for your birth date from your browser's time zone database (Singapore, for example, ran at UTC+7:30 until 1982). If your birthplace is not listed, pick a city in the same time zone.
What is the late Rat hour?
The Rat hour (子時) runs from 23:00 to 01:00. Practitioners disagree about the first hour of it, 23:00 to 23:59. The default here keeps the date until midnight, but still takes the hour pillar from the next day's stem. This is the same rule our full reading uses, so the two agree. A second school starts the new day at 23:00. You can switch to it under More options.
Does the calculator use true solar time?
Only if you turn it on. Clock time is the default, because it is what a birth record gives. True solar time shifts your clock reading by four minutes for each degree your birthplace is east or west of its time zone's central meridian, plus a small correction for the equation of time, accurate to about a minute. It matters only when it moves you across a two-hour boundary, and practitioners disagree about when to use it.
How is the element balance counted?
Each heavenly stem counts once for its element, and each earthly branch counts once for its main element, so a full chart counts eight characters. Hidden stems are shown but not counted. This is a simple count of what is present. It does not weigh the season, which is why a full reading goes further than the count does.
Is the BaZi calculator free, and is my birth data stored?
It is free and needs no account. The calculation runs in your browser, and your birth details are not sent to Oracate's servers or saved to a profile. The page records only that a chart was calculated, not what you entered.
What does the calculator not tell me?
It shows the structure of your chart, not an interpretation of it. It does not judge whether your Day Master is strong or weak, pick a favourable element, or calculate luck pillars or the coming year. Those depend on the whole chart and the season of birth, and they are what a BaZi reading covers.
The chart is the structure. A reading is what it means.
This calculator shows which eight characters you were born under. It does not say how strong your Day Master is, which element helps it, or how today sits against your chart. Oracate builds your chart from your birth details and reads each day from it, alongside Western astrology.
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