Five of Pentacles tarot card meaning: upright, reversed and symbols

The Five of Pentacles shows two people struggling through a snowstorm, one on crutches and both in rags, as they pass a lit church window with five pentacles in the glass. It is a card of hardship, worry about money and feeling left out in the cold. This page covers what the Five of Pentacles means upright and reversed, the symbols in the 1909 card and a gentle spread for hard times.

At a glance

• Upright keywords: financial loss, poverty, insecurity
• Reversed keywords: recovery, improvement, overcoming adversity
• Number: 5 in the suit of Pentacles
• Suit and element: Pentacles, Earth Later tradition
• Astrology: Mercury in Taurus Later tradition
• Yes or no: No Modern

The element and the planet in a sign (one of the 36 ten-degree slices of the zodiac called decans) come from the Golden Dawn system of the 1880s and 1890s, not from the first tarot decks. The yes or no lean is a modern reading habit. Use these layers if they help you remember the card, and skip them if they get in the way.

The card: what Pamela Colman Smith drew

Waite described it in one line: “Two mendicants in a snowstorm pass a lighted casement.” Mendicants are beggars. A casement is a window.

The snow

The cold is real. The card does not pretend that hardship is a lesson in disguise.

The crutches

One figure is injured. Hardship often comes with health problems, and both make each other worse.

The lit window

They walk past a warm, lit window. Help may be close, though they do not look up.

Upright meaning

Upright, the Five of Pentacles gives hardship a place in the reading without asking you to make it inspiring. It can speak to financial strain, exclusion or the loneliness of struggling while other people seem fine. The card names it.

Look for the lit window: a support service, a friend, a community. Asking for help is not failure. If you are the one who is fine, this card can ask you to open the door.

Reversed meaning

Reversed, the Five of Pentacles can show recovery, improvement and getting through adversity. The snow is easing.

Keep going, and keep accepting help. Recovery is slow, and that is fine.

Reversals are optional. Many readers never use them and read every card upright, and that is a complete way to read. If you do use them, decide before you shuffle what a reversed card will mean for you, and keep to that choice for the whole reading.

In love, work and spirituality

Love

Upright, struggling together, or feeling left out in love. Reversed, coming through a hard time.

Work and money

Job loss, money worries. Reversed, finding work again.

Spirituality

Feeling shut out of a community. Reversed, finding your people.

As feelings

As someone’s feelings, the Five of Pentacles shows worry or feeling left out. They may be struggling.

The Five of Pentacles as past, present, future and advice

• Past: A hard time shaped you.
• Present: Things are hard. Look for help.
• Future: A difficult stretch may come, and help will be near.
• Advice: Ask for help.

A Minor Arcana card usually describes the everyday texture of a situation: a mood, a conversation, a task or a step. If the Five of Pentacles appears next to a Major Arcana card, let the Major name the big theme and let this card show how it is playing out in the body and the other things Pentacles rule. If it keeps coming back over several days, write down what was happening each time.

Is the Five of Pentacles a yes or a no?

In modern yes or no readings, the Five of Pentacles leans no. Hardship points to no for now. Tarot is better at showing the shape of a situation than at handing down verdicts, so if the question really matters, turn it into an open question such as “What do I need to know about this?” and draw again.

Affirmation and journal prompts

Affirmation: I deserve care and support while I face difficult circumstances.

Reversed affirmation: I recognize available support and take recovery at my own pace.

Journal prompts:

• Where is my lit window?
• Who could I ask for help?
• Who could I help?

What the Five means in tarot

Five is the unstable middle: conflict, loss, contest and disruption. After the steady Four, something shakes. The Fives are the hardest cards of each suit for many beginners, but they are also where the story starts to move again.

Here is how the Five looks across the four suits:

• Five of Wands: conflict, competition, tension
• Five of Cups: regret, loss, sorrow
• Five of Swords: conflict, defeat, betrayal
• Five of Pentacles (this card): financial loss, poverty, insecurity

Learning a rank across the suits is one of the fastest ways to learn the Minor Arcana: the number or court rank gives you the shape, and the suit gives you the setting.

The history and art behind the card

In most decks before 1909, the number cards showed only a pattern of suit symbols, the way a playing card does. The Sola Busca deck from late 1400s Italy is the famous exception. Pamela Colman Smith gave every Minor Arcana card a scene with people in it, and that choice is a big reason the Rider-Waite-Smith deck is still the easiest deck for beginners. In Italian decks the suit is Denari (coins) and in the Tarot de Marseille it is Deniers, round coins. Occult writers of the 1800s, and then the Golden Dawn, turned the coins into pentacles, discs engraved with a five-pointed star, and Smith followed that. Waite noted that “in old Tarot packs this suit represented money”, but on this site I read it more widely as everything material you tend.

The church window in this card is one of the few places in the deck where stained glass appears, along with the Four of Swords. Smith did not draw a door, only a window, and the two figures are already walking past it. Many readers take that as the heart of the card: help may exist nearby, but hardship makes it hard to see or to reach. A useful way to read this card is as a prompt to name practical help, such as a food bank, a debt advice service or a friend, and not only as a mood.

When A. E. Waite published The Pictorial Key to the Tarot in 1910, he listed these divinatory meanings for the Five of Pentacles: “The card foretells material trouble above all, whether in the form illustrated, that is, destitution, or otherwise. For some cartomancists, it is a card of love and lovers, wife, husband, friend, mistress; also concordance, affinities. These alternatives cannot be harmonized.” Reversed, he gave: “Disorder, chaos, ruin, discord, profligacy.” Waite said he was offering “a harmony of their meanings” gathered “from all sources”, which means older fortune-telling lists, not his own reading of the picture. On this site I read the picture first and treat lists like this as history.

A spread for the Five of Pentacles

Use this gentle spread when money or health is hard.

1. What is the hardship? The struggle, named.
2. Where is help? The lit window.
3. What is one step? A small action.

Lay the three cards in a row, read each one on its own first, then read them together as a short story. Write one sentence for each position and one small action you will take.

Common questions

Is the Five of Pentacles a yes or no card?

It leans no. It shows hardship.

What does the Five of Pentacles mean for money?

Financial strain. If you are struggling, look for local advice services as well as personal support.

What does the Five of Pentacles mean reversed?

Recovery and improvement.

Related cards

• Five of Cups: grief in the water suit
• Six of Pentacles: help arriving
• The Tower: the Major Arcana card of sudden upheaval

Keep learning

The Five of Pentacles is part of the lesson Pentacles in my free Tarot for Beginners course. To see the whole suit on one page, go to the suit of Pentacles. To keep walking the suit, read the card before it, Four of Pentacles or the card after it, Six of Pentacles, or go back to all the card meanings. For the suits and numbers in one place, see The Minor Arcana: suits and numbers made simple. For every card with keywords, affirmations and examples, see my book The Novice’s Guide to Tarot. If you would like a printable cheat sheet for all 78 cards, my 45-page Tarot Workbook is on Etsy.

Sources

• A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (London: Rider, 1910), Part III, sections 1 and 2.
• Pamela Colman Smith and A. E. Waite, the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot (London: Rider, 1909).
• Nicolas Conver, Tarot de Marseille (Marseille, 1760).
• Lauri Mukkala, The Novice’s Guide to Tarot, entry for the Five of Pentacles.