Samjae by zodiac animal: how it is counted and a year table to 2039

Samjae (三災, “three calamities”) is a Korean folk belief that every twelve years each zodiac animal goes through a three-year stretch in which three kinds of misfortune arrive. The three are explained either as disasters of water, fire and wind, or as war, disease and famine. Asking “which animals are in samjae this year?” at the turn of the year is a familiar Korean custom.

Samjae splits the twelve animals into four groups of three and gives each group three fixed years. So for any animal, three years out of every twelve are samjae years and the other nine are not, and in any given year exactly three animals are in samjae together.

In 2027, the Jeong-mi (丁未) year, the Pig, Rabbit and Goat reach the last of their three years, the leaving year. This guide covers the rule that decides the samjae animals, what the entering, middle and leaving years mean, a year table for 2016 to 2039, the January and February boundary for your animal, and how to treat samjae without fear. To be clear from the start: samjae is part of a cultural tradition, not something statistics or science has confirmed.

Samjae starts from grouping the animals into trines (三合), sets of three branches said to work well together. There are four: 申子辰 (Monkey, Rat, Dragon), 亥卯未 (Pig, Rabbit, Goat), 寅午戌 (Tiger, Horse, Dog) and 巳酉丑 (Snake, Rooster, Ox). The trines, pairings and clashes between all twelve animals are laid out in the zodiac compatibility chart.

Each group’s three samjae years are found like this: take the branch that directly clashes (沖) with the group’s first branch, and the three years of the season that starts with that branch are its samjae. The 申 that opens 申子辰 clashes with 寅, so its samjae is the 寅卯辰 years; 亥 in 亥卯未 clashes with 巳, giving 巳午未 years; 寅 in 寅午戌 clashes with 申, giving 申酉戌 years; and 巳 in 巳酉丑 clashes with 亥, giving 亥子丑 years.

In short: the Monkey, Rat and Dragon are in samjae in Tiger, Rabbit and Dragon years; the Pig, Rabbit and Goat in Snake, Horse and Goat years; the Tiger, Horse and Dog in Monkey, Rooster and Dog years; and the Snake, Rooster and Ox in Pig, Rat and Ox years. This site’s 2027 new-year fortune and its pages for each animal use the same rule.

The 亥卯未 group, Pig, Rabbit and Goat: 2025 乙巳 (entering year), 2026 丙午 (middle year), 2027 丁未 (leaving year). Their next samjae is 2037 丁巳, 2038 戊午 and 2039 己未.

The 寅午戌 group, Tiger, Horse and Dog: 2028 戊申 (entering year), 2029 己酉 (middle year), 2030 庚戌 (leaving year). Their last samjae was 2016 丙申, 2017 丁酉 and 2018 戊戌.

The 巳酉丑 group, Snake, Rooster and Ox: 2031 辛亥 (entering year), 2032 壬子 (middle year), 2033 癸丑 (leaving year). Their last samjae was 2019 己亥, 2020 庚子 and 2021 辛丑.

The 申子辰 group, Monkey, Rat and Dragon: 2034 甲寅 (entering year), 2035 乙卯 (middle year), 2036 丙辰 (leaving year). Their last samjae was 2022 壬寅, 2023 癸卯 and 2024 甲辰.

Each year in the table runs from that year’s Ipchun to the day before the next Ipchun. The stem-branch names were checked with this site’s saju calculation (year pillars from Ipchun). Select an animal to open its page with its 2027 outlook and its next samjae years.

The three samjae years are named in order. The first is the entering year (deul-samjae), when samjae comes in; the second the middle year (nul-samjae), when it settles; and the third the leaving year (nal-samjae), when it goes out. For the Pig, Rabbit and Goat, 2027 is the leaving year of a run that entered in 2025 and stayed through 2026.

Sources disagree on which year weighs most. Some say to be most careful in the entering year, others that the middle year feels longest, others that the leaving year is the one to close well. There is even a phrase, “lucky samjae” (bok-samjae), for a samjae that brings good things, which shows how differently the same three years are read.

That the readings never settle on one answer is itself a sign that samjae need not be taken as a sentence of fate. The practical advice tradition attaches to it mostly comes down to “do not overreach, look after your health, double-check big decisions,” which are good habits for anyone in any year.

Since samjae goes by your animal, your animal has to be right first. If you were born in January or early February, it can change depending on the rule. Saju and almanacs start the year at Ipchun (around 3 to 5 February), while everyday Korean usage often counts animals from the lunar new year. This site uses Ipchun.

Take a birth on 20 January 1991. On the calendar that is a 1991 birth, but it comes before Ipchun, so in saju it belongs to 1990, a Gyeong-o (庚午) year: a Horse, not a Goat. That moves the person from the 2027 leaving year to the 寅午戌 group’s samjae, which starts in 2028. If your birthday falls between January and early February, check your Ipchun-based animal with the free saju reading first.

Counting from Ipchun, the main birth years in the 2027 leaving year are, for the Pig, 1947, 1959, 1971, 1983, 1995, 2007 and 2019; for the Rabbit, 1951, 1963, 1975, 1987, 1999, 2011 and 2023; and for the Goat, 1955, 1967, 1979, 1991, 2003 and 2015. Births from January to early February in those years may belong to the previous animal, so do check.

The samjae year itself works the same way. Counted from Ipchun, the 2027 leaving year runs from Ipchun on 4 February 2027 to the day before Ipchun in 2028. Sources that count from the lunar new year can be off by a few days to a few weeks at either end.

Samjae has never been confirmed by statistics or science. In Korea alone, hundreds of thousands of people are born under the same animal in a single year, and they do not all go through the same things in the same three years. It is less that samjae makes things go wrong than that, once you have heard the word, bad news stands out more and stays in memory longer.

You may meet people who use samjae as a reason to sell talismans, gut rituals or costly prayers. Such offers usually push you to hurry, as if something terrible will happen unless you act now, but no misfortune comes from saying no. If the sum is large or you are being rushed, do not answer on the spot: take a day and ask family or someone you trust first.

If samjae is on your mind, use those three years as a cue for a check-up. Book a health check, reread contracts and insurance, trim an overloaded schedule: doing things that actually protect you turns a vague worry into a to-do list. If worry about luck is disturbing your sleep or spreading into the rest of daily life, the anxiety check-in (GAD-7) can help you put your state into words. It is not a diagnosis either.

If you want to see how the whole chart fits together, start with how to read a saju chart and see where your animal (the year pillar) sits among the four pillars. It is one character out of eight.

Q. When is my animal’s next samjae? A. It depends on your animal’s trine. Counting from Ipchun, the Tiger, Horse and Dog are next in samjae from 2028 to 2030, the Snake, Rooster and Ox from 2031 to 2033, the Monkey, Rat and Dragon from 2034 to 2036, and the Pig, Rabbit and Goat, who finish theirs in 2027, from 2037 to 2039.

Q. How often does samjae come round? A. Every twelve years. For each animal, three consecutive years out of twelve are samjae and the other nine are not. So after a three-year run there are nine years off, and the next run starts twelve years after the last one began (for example, 2025 to 2027, then 2037 to 2039).

Q. Should I avoid marrying or moving during samjae? A. There is no evidence that you need to. The advice to avoid big events in samjae is folk counsel, nothing more; decisions about marriage, moving or changing jobs are better made on real conditions such as your circumstances, readiness and costs.

Q. Do I have to get a samjae talisman or ritual? A. No, you do not. Nothing shows that talismans or rituals ward off samjae. Enjoying a small custom for comfort is your own choice, but if someone asks for a large sum because you are worried, say no.