A tarot deck holds 78 cards. That number is not decorative — it is a structure, and once you can see it the deck stops being 78 things to memorise and becomes four short stories plus a spine. This page names every card and says what it does in one line, then explains what changes from deck to deck.
If you would rather see the cards than read about them, the free tarot reading on this site draws from the full 78 and gives you A. E. Waite's original 1911 text for each one, plus a plainer line underneath. No sign-up, no email, no cost.
The Major Arcana: 22 cards
The Majors are the named, numbered cards — the ones people recognise. They deal in large, structural matters rather than daily detail, and when several turn up in one spread the reading is usually about something you are not in charge of.
One warning worth having early: Death and The Tower are almost never literal, and any reader who tells you otherwise is performing. Death is an ending that clears ground. The Tower is a structure collapsing because it was built badly. Both are uncomfortable. Neither is a prediction of harm.
The Minor Arcana: 56 cards in four suits
The Minors are the working half of the deck — ordinary life, at ordinary scale. Each suit runs Ace to Ten and then four court cards, exactly like a pack of playing cards, because that is what it descends from.
Wands
Cups
Swords
Pentacles
The court cards, which everybody finds hardest
Sixteen of the 78 are court cards, and they are the usual place beginners stall. The trouble is that they can be read three ways: as a person in your life, as a part of yourself, or as an approach you could take. Nothing in the card tells you which. In practice the position in the spread decides it — which is the argument we make at length in three cards, and why the positions do all the work.
The rough ladder is Page (learning it), Knight (doing it, probably too fast), Queen (holding it from the inside) and King (holding it from the outside). Marseille decks use Valet instead of Page; the Thoth deck replaces the whole rank with Princess, Prince, Queen and Knight, which is why Thoth court cards confuse people who learned on a Rider–Waite deck.
What actually changes between decks
Most decks sold today keep the 78-card structure and change only the artwork. A few things genuinely differ, and they are worth knowing before you buy:
- Strength and Justice swap places. In the Rider–Waite–Smith deck Strength is VIII and Justice is XI. In the older Marseille tradition it is the other way round. Waite moved them for astrological reasons and most modern decks followed him. Nothing is wrong with either.
- Suit names. Pentacles, Coins and Disks are the same suit. So are Wands, Batons, Staves and Rods. The meanings do not change with the label.
- Illustrated pips. Rider–Waite–Smith gave every Minor card a scene. Marseille decks show only the count — five cups, five cups. Scenes are far easier to learn from, which is most of why RWS became the default.
- Bonus cards. Some publishers add an extra card or two. Your deck is not faulty if it holds 79.
- Card stock and size. The one thing nobody mentions and everybody notices. A thick, wide deck is genuinely hard to shuffle with small hands.
Tarot was a card game for roughly three hundred years before anyone read fortunes with it, and the structure above is a games structure — trumps and four suits. We have set that history out in tarot was a card game for three hundred years.
Decks and boxes we stock
A declaration of interest: we sell cards, so treat what follows as an offer rather than advice. Ours are illustrated 78-card decks with guide booklets, in the £9–£50 range. We do not stock Rider–Waite or Thoth, so if you specifically want one of those, buy it elsewhere and use the reader here for free.
Oracle decks are the looser cousin — no suits, no fixed count. We cover the difference properly in our guide to oracle cards.
And the practical bit nobody plans for: a deck lives longer in a box than in the card carton it arrived in, which splits within months. Tarot boxes covers sizes and fit.
Common questions
Are there 78 cards in a tarot deck?
Yes. A standard tarot deck has 78 cards: 22 Major Arcana and 56 Minor Arcana. The 56 Minors are four suits of 14 — Ace through Ten, plus four court cards. If a deck you are looking at has a different count, it is either an oracle deck or it includes bonus cards, which some modern publishers add.
What are the 22 cards in a tarot deck?
The 22 are the Major Arcana, numbered 0 to 21: The Fool, Magician, High Priestess, Empress, Emperor, Hierophant, Lovers, Chariot, Strength, Hermit, Wheel of Fortune, Justice, Hanged Man, Death, Temperance, Devil, Tower, Star, Moon, Sun, Judgement and The World.
What are the 12 major tarot cards?
There is no set of 12 — the Major Arcana has 22 cards, not 12. The question usually comes from confusing the Majors with the 12 zodiac signs, which some systems map onto certain cards. That mapping is a 19th-century addition and is not part of the deck itself.
What is the difference between tarot and oracle cards?
Structure. A tarot deck is fixed: 78 cards, 22 Majors, four suits of 14. An oracle deck has no fixed number, no suits and no standard cards — it might hold 30 or 60, entirely of the maker's choosing. Neither is more serious. Tarot has a shared grammar; oracle decks do not.
Which deck of tarot cards should I buy?
For a first deck, buy one built on the Rider–Waite–Smith structure, because almost every book and website you will consult assumes it — including the free reader on this page. Beyond that, buy art you will actually pick up. We have written this out at length in our guide to choosing a first deck.
Ready to actually use one? The free tarot reading draws from all 78 cards in four spreads. If you are still choosing, read how to choose your first tarot deck. Everything else we have written is in the buying guides.