Year of the Monkey

The Monkey personality

The Monkey is the zodiac's trickster genius — clever, curious, and irrepressibly playful. Monkeys are quick in every sense: quick-witted, quick-tongued, and quick to find the solution everyone else missed. They have a restless, inventive intelligence and a mischievous sense of humour, and they're never happier than when they're solving a puzzle, working an angle, or making a room laugh.

Monkeys are sociable, adaptable, and confident, with a gift for charming their way through almost any situation. They love novelty and variety and get bored fast, which keeps them learning, experimenting, and reinventing themselves. There's a sharp strategic mind under the playfulness — Monkeys are excellent at reading people and situations and bending them to their advantage, sometimes a little too cleverly.

Everything that makes the Monkey brilliant is the same thing that can trip it up. The wit that makes hard things look easy can slide into cutting corners; the gift for reading people can curdle into working them; the restless hunger for the next thing can leave a trail of clever starts and no finishes. The Monkey's whole life is really one question — when is the smart move to stop being clever and simply be honest? — and the Monkeys who answer it well are unstoppable.

Monkey in love & compatibility

Clicks most with

Tends to clash with

Monkeys are charming, playful partners who need a relationship that keeps them mentally stimulated and laughing. Boredom is their enemy in love. They click with the clever Rat, a kindred quick mind; the confident Dragon, whose energy they love to spar with; and the wise Snake, whose depth intrigues them. The Tiger is the classic clash — two strong wills that can't stop competing — and the trusting Pig can feel outmatched by the Monkey's cunning. A partner who's smart, secure, and up for the game wins a Monkey's loyal, lively heart.

Monkey career & money

Monkeys excel wherever wit, innovation, and adaptability are prized — business, technology, science, media, entertainment, sales, anything fast-moving and problem-rich. They are inventive strategists and natural improvisers who shine in roles that change constantly and reward thinking on their feet. With money they're clever and opportunistic, good at finding angles but sometimes too quick to chase the next scheme. The watch-out is restlessness and over-cleverness: Monkeys can outsmart themselves. Focused on something worthy, their ingenuity is a genuine superpower.

Lucky traits of the Monkey

Metal is the Monkey's fixed element, and run through outward Yang it gives the Monkey's playfulness a hard, precise edge — Metal is the sharpness and resolve, Yang is the urge to use it out loud and in the open. That's why a Monkey's cleverness never stays still: it's a tool that wants to be wielded. Lucky numbers 1, 7, and 8, and the colours white, blue, and gold, are traditionally said to support a Monkey's good fortune.

Recent & upcoming Monkey years

The Monkey comes around once every twelve years. If you were born in one of these years you're likely a Monkey — though anyone born in January or early February should double-check against the exact Chinese New Year date, since the Monkey year begins then, not on 1 January.

Recent years

Upcoming years

Frequently asked questions about the Monkey