The transfer question is asked from both sides. The government employee three hundred kilometres from a spouse and two children, asking when the home posting comes. The bank officer who has heard the rural rotation is due, asking whether this is the year. The corporate employee with a relocation offer on the desk. All of them are asking about movement inside continuity: the same employer, the same job, a different place, which is a different event in the chart from a change of job and is read from different houses. The chart reads it well, because place is one of the things the houses were built to describe, and a posting history laid against a dasha table is one of the more satisfying confirmations in the whole subject.
This article belongs to the complete career astrology guide. A change of employer is a different event, read in Job Change and Career Change; a posting abroad is a foreign-work event, read in job abroad and work relocation. This page is the transfer within the country and within the service.
Conventions used. Parashari astrology, whole-sign houses, Lahiri ayanamsa, Vimshottari dasha, transits of Saturn, Jupiter, the nodes, the Moon and the Sun. Movement is read from the third, twelfth and ninth houses, home from the fourth, the employer’s order from the tenth. The KP treatment of transfers through cusp sub-lords is a separate instrument and is linked at the end.
In this article
- What a transfer is in the chart
- The planets of movement and of home
- Wanted transfers and unwanted ones
- The chart that keeps moving and the chart that stays
- Timing a transfer
- When will I get my home posting?
- The family’s side of a transfer
- The corporate relocation offer
- A worked chart: an officer’s posting history
- What the reading cannot arrange
- Frequently asked questions
What a transfer is in the chart
The third house is movement: short journeys, change of place, the step from one town to the next, and every transfer is a third-house event in the plain sense. The twelfth is the distant place, departure, the posting far from what is familiar, the isolated station, and the transfer nobody asked for tends to be a twelfth-house event. The ninth is the long journey, the far posting that is also a step up, and the training or deputation at a distance. The fourth is home: the base, the town of one’s own, the family house, and the transfer to the home district is a fourth-house event before anything else. The tenth is the employer’s order, because a transfer is something the employer does. The sixth is the service rules under which it happens, and the seventh is the spouse whose life the transfer rearranges.
A transfer differs from a job change in leaving the sixth and tenth houses undisturbed. The employer is the same, the standing is the same, and only the place changes; the transfer with a promotion adds the eleventh and the tenth, and the transfer that feels like an exile adds the twelfth and the eighth.
The planets of movement and of home
The Moon is movement itself, the restlessness and the changing address, and a chart whose Moon is strong in the third or twelfth is a chart that moves. Rahu is the unfamiliar posting, the distant, foreign or unwanted place, and Rahu’s transits and periods bring the transfers that land somewhere the native has never heard of. Ketu is the remote and isolated station, and the detachment that makes it bearable. Saturn is the long posting, the one that lasts years, and the punishment posting, and Saturn’s transit over the fourth is the classic uprooting. Mars is the abrupt order, the transfer that arrives on a Friday for Monday. Mercury is the order itself, the paperwork, the request and its file. Jupiter is the favourable transfer, the one that comes with a promotion or a good town. Venus is the comfortable posting. The Sun is the authority that signs the order, and the ninth lord is the senior whose favour moves it.
Wanted transfers and unwanted ones
The home posting is the fourth house delivered: a fourth-lord sub-period, Jupiter’s transit over the fourth or its lord, or a Moon sub-period when the Moon is connected to the fourth. It arrives through the eleventh when a request is granted through a network, and through the ninth when a senior grants it as a favour.
The far posting is the twelfth: a twelfth-lord sub-period, Rahu’s or Ketu’s over the fourth or the lagna, Saturn’s transit over the fourth. Whether it is a punishment or a promotion depends on what else is running: the twelfth lord alone gives the exile, the twelfth lord with the tenth or eleventh gives the far posting that turns out to be the making of a career, the ninth lord with the twelfth gives the far posting with training or a step up attached.
The transfer that breaks the home, the one that separates a family for years, is the nodal axis across the fourth and tenth or Saturn’s transit over the fourth during a twelfth-lord sub-period, and it is the transfer the reading should see coming, because a family that knows the window can plan for it.
The chart that keeps moving and the chart that stays
Some charts are transferred every two years and some hold one posting for a decade, and the difference is visible. Movable signs on the lagna or the fourth, the Moon or Rahu in the third or twelfth, Mars in the third, and a fourth lord placed in the third, ninth or twelfth give the chart that moves; its native should build a life that travels. Fixed signs on the lagna or the fourth, Saturn in the fourth, and a fourth lord in its own house or in the lagna give the chart that stays; its native should find the posting they want and hold it, because the chart will let them. The Moon’s sign says how the native bears the moving: a fixed-sign Moon suffers each transfer, a movable-sign Moon is bored by the fourth year anywhere.
Timing a transfer
Transfers fall in the sub-periods of the third, twelfth, ninth and fourth lords, and of the Moon, Rahu and Ketu, with the fourth lord’s giving the move toward home and the twelfth lord’s the move away from it. Saturn’s transit over the fourth uproots and over the twelfth sends far; Rahu’s transit over the fourth or third brings the unfamiliar posting; Jupiter’s over the fourth grants the home posting and over the ninth the far posting with a step up. The Sun’s monthly transit through the third, fourth or twelfth dates the order within the window, and in services with an annual transfer season the Sun’s passage through those houses can be lined up against it in advance. The general logic of timing, of which this is a special case, is the same as for any career event: the dasha names the window, the transit the month.
When will I get my home posting?
This is the transfer question asked most often, and it has a clean answer. The home posting belongs to the fourth lord: its sub-period, its dignity, and Jupiter’s transit over the fourth house or over the fourth lord itself. A dignified fourth lord gives the home posting when its sub-period comes; a fourth lord in the twelfth gives a home posting that is delayed or arrives with a condition; a fourth lord in the eleventh or ninth gives it through a request granted or a senior’s favour. The request should be made in the window, in a Mercury sub-period if one is near, because Mercury governs the file, and the ninth lord’s sub-period is the one in which the person who can sign it is inclined to. Where the chart shows no fourth-lord window for years, the honest reading says so, and a family that knows it can decide whether the spouse moves instead, which is a reading of the spouse’s chart.
The family’s side of a transfer
A transfer moves a household, and the household has charts. The spouse’s seventh and fourth say whether they can move with the native; a spouse whose own career is a strong tenth cannot, and the transfer separates. The children’s education is the fourth and fifth, and a transfer in a child’s examination year is a fifth-house cost that the parent’s chart does not show. The reading of a transfer is therefore two or three charts read together, and the native’s chart is only the first of them. Where a transfer coincides with a marriage that relocates the native, the reading continues in Career Break and Return to Work, which treats the relocation that pauses a career.
The corporate relocation offer
The private sector transfers by offer rather than order, and the offer is read from the tenth and eleventh against the fourth. An offer in a tenth or eleventh lord sub-period with the fourth intact is a relocation that advances the career without breaking the base, and it is usually worth taking. An offer in a twelfth-lord sub-period without the tenth or eleventh is the relocation that costs the home and returns little, and the reading says to negotiate or decline. Rahu on the offer, by sub-period or transit, gives the relocation to the larger city or the newer office and the overreach that can follow. The uniformed services and the administrative services have their own posting cycles, read in Defence and Police Careers and Civil Services in the Chart, and the transfer that comes with a rise is timed in When Will I Get a Promotion?.
A worked chart: an officer’s posting history
A Taurus lagna chart, particulars altered. The Moon, lord of the third, sits in Aries in the twelfth: movement, aimed at distant places. Mars, lord of the twelfth and seventh, is debilitated in Cancer in the third with Rahu: departures through short moves, unfamiliar and unsettled. The Sun, lord of the fourth, sits in Pisces in the eleventh with Jupiter, lord of the eighth and eleventh, in its own sign, and Mercury, lord of the second and fifth, debilitated but cancelled by Jupiter’s presence: the home delivered through the eleventh, a network and a favour. Saturn, lord of the ninth and tenth and the yogakaraka, sits in Leo in the fourth: the base held under the service’s weight, and long absences from it. Venus, lord of the lagna and sixth, sits in Aquarius in the tenth. Ketu is in Capricorn in the ninth.
Read it for movement. The third lord in the twelfth and the twelfth lord in the third, with Rahu: a chart that moves, and moves far, and does not settle easily. Saturn on the fourth: the home is a place the service keeps him away from. The fourth lord with Jupiter in the eleventh: the home posting exists, and it comes through a favour granted late. He is a state revenue officer, and his posting history reads off the table.
The Moon’s major period, the third lord’s, ran through his late twenties and thirties. The Moon’s own sub-period brought the first posting, far from home. Moon-Mars, the debilitated twelfth lord with Rahu in the third, brought the posting that felt like a punishment, a remote sub-division nobody wanted. Moon-Rahu brought three moves in four years. Moon-Jupiter, the eleventh lord in its own sign beside the fourth lord, brought the first posting within reach of home, through a senior’s word. Moon-Saturn, the yogakaraka on the fourth, brought a long posting in the district town, five years in one place, the base held by the service rather than by him. Moon-Mercury, the cancelled second and fifth lord in the eleventh with the fourth lord, brought the order to the home district, the fourth house delivered through the house it sits in, while Jupiter transited his fourth. Moon-Ketu, Ketu in the ninth, was a deputation to a training institute at a distance. Moon-Venus, the lagna and sixth lord in the tenth, was headquarters. Mars’s major period, the twelfth lord’s, followed, and the reading at its start said the far postings would return and named Mars-Sun, the fourth lord’s sub-period, as the window to apply for home again. The dasha table had described his transfer file before the file existed.
What the reading cannot arrange
It cannot issue the order, and no fourth-lord window guarantees the posting; it names the years in which the request is most likely to be granted and the months in which to make it. It cannot see the service’s vacancy list or the politics of the transfer board. It reads the native’s chart, and a transfer is lived by a household whose other charts it has not seen. It rests on the birth time, since the third, fourth and twelfth are whole signs and a lagna one sign wrong exchanges the house of home for the house of exile. In KP the same event is judged through the sub-lords of the third, ninth, tenth and twelfth cusps, a separate instrument set out in job transfer and relocation in KP, and the two are not combined in one reading. The planet that carries the career underneath the postings is found in Which Planet Is Responsible for Career?.
Frequently asked questions
Which planet is responsible for a transfer in a job?
The Moon, the planet of movement and the changing address, with Rahu for the unfamiliar or distant posting, Saturn for the long posting and the uprooting, Mars for the abrupt order and Mercury for the order’s file. In a given chart the transfer belongs to the lords of the third, twelfth, ninth and fourth houses and to whichever of them holds the running sub-period.
Which house indicates a transfer?
The third house, the house of movement and short journeys, for the transfer itself; the twelfth for the distant or unwanted posting; the ninth for the far posting with a step up or a training attached; and the fourth for the transfer toward home. The tenth is the employer’s order, and the sixth the service rules under which it comes.
When will I get a transfer to my home town?
In a sub-period of the fourth lord, or of a planet placed in the fourth, with Jupiter transiting the fourth house or the fourth lord as the trigger. A fourth lord in the eleventh or ninth delivers the home posting through a request granted or a senior’s favour, and the request should be made inside the window, in a Mercury sub-period if one is near. A fourth lord in the twelfth delays it or attaches a condition.
Will I get transferred this year?
The chart answers through the running and coming sub-periods and the current transits. A sub-period of the third, twelfth, ninth or fourth lord, or of the Moon, Rahu or Ketu, with Saturn, Rahu or Jupiter transiting the fourth, third or twelfth house, is a window in which a transfer is likely, and the Sun’s passage through those houses dates the order within it. Outside such a window the posting usually holds.
Does Rahu give a transfer?
Rahu’s sub-periods and Rahu’s transit over the fourth or third house bring the transfer to the unfamiliar place, the larger city, the newer office or the posting the native had never considered. Rahu with the twelfth lord gives the far and unwanted posting; Rahu with the tenth or eleventh gives the far posting that advances the career.
Is a Saturn transit responsible for transfer?
Saturn’s transit over the fourth house is the classic uprooting, the transfer that moves the base, and over the twelfth it sends the native far. Saturn’s sub-periods bring the long posting, the years in one place, and the punishment posting when Saturn is connected to the twelfth. A Saturn transit over the fourth during a twelfth-lord sub-period is the transfer that separates a family, and a household that knows the window can plan for it.
Should I accept a relocation offer?
An offer in a tenth or eleventh lord sub-period with the fourth house intact advances the career without breaking the base and is usually worth taking. An offer in a twelfth-lord sub-period without the tenth or eleventh costs the home and returns little. The spouse’s and children’s charts complete the reading, because a relocation is lived by a household.
Home posting or far posting: which window is yours?
A one-to-one consultation reads your third, fourth and twelfth houses with the Moon, Rahu and Saturn, lays your posting history against the dasha table, and names the sub-period and the transit in which a home transfer is most likely to be granted.