What’s in the deck: 22 + 56
| Part of the deck | Cards | What it includes |
|---|---|---|
| Major Arcana | 22 | Picture cards numbered from 0 (The Fool) to 21 (The World) |
| Minor Arcana: number cards | 40 | 10 cards in each of the 4 suits: the Ace and the Two through the Ten |
| Minor Arcana: court cards | 16 | 4 in each suit: Page, Knight, Queen, King |
| Total | 78 |
The Major Arcana are usually numbered from 0 to 21, which gives 22 cards1. They are all collected in the Major Arcana section, and the minor cards in the Minor Arcana section.
The four suits
- Wands: energy, action, initiative.
- Cups: feelings, relationships, intuition.
- Swords: thoughts, decisions, conflicts.
- Pentacles: money, work, the body, the material world.
Each suit has 14 cards: 10 number cards and 4 court cards. The tarot suits are related to the suits of ordinary playing cards: tarot itself appeared in the 15th century as a deck for a game with permanent trumps1.
How many cards are in the Rider–Waite tarot deck
Also 78: 22 Major and 56 Minor Arcana2. The deck was illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith following the instructions of Arthur Edward Waite, and it was published by William Rider & Son in December 19092. The main difference from older decks is the illustrated scenes on all the Minor Arcana: before that, with rare exceptions, the Minor Arcana were designed simply2.
Another feature: Waite swapped Strength and Justice. In the Waite deck Strength is VIII and Justice is XI, while in many earlier decks it is the other way around2.
The Thoth deck and the Tarot de Marseille
- The Thoth Tarot is Aleister Crowley’s deck, painted by Frieda Harris3. Its main version also has 78 cards (some editions add alternative versions of The Magician), but some of the names are different: Strength is called “Lust” and Justice is called “Adjustment”; the court cards are Knight, Queen, Prince and Princess instead of King, Queen, Knight and Page3. Crowley’s The Book of Thoth was published in 19443.
- The Tarot de Marseille is the traditional French deck. Its structure is the same, 22 + 56, but the Minor Arcana number cards have no illustrated scenes. The occultist Oswald Wirth based his 22 Major Arcana on its designs, drawing them in 1889 after the Tarot de Marseille4.
Are there decks with a different number of cards?
Yes. Some modern creators add extra cards to the 78, for example one more Major Arcana card. Sometimes a blank card is included in the box, but it is not used in spreads; see the article “The blank card in tarot”. There are also decks made up only of the 22 Major Arcana.
Don’t confuse tarot with oracle cards: oracle decks have no single structure and can contain any number of cards.
How to check that your deck is complete
- Lay out the Major Arcana in order from 0 to 21: there should be 22 of them.
- Sort the Minor Arcana by suit: each suit has 14 cards, from Ace to King.
- That makes 78 in total. If something is missing, it is better to replace the deck: if even one card is missing, your spreads will be incomplete.
Frequently asked questions
How many cards are in a tarot deck?
78: 22 Major Arcana and 56 Minor Arcana1.
How many cards are in a Rider–Waite tarot deck?
Also 78: 22 Major and 56 Minor Arcana2.
How many Major Arcana cards are in a tarot deck?
22, numbered from 0 to 211.
How many court cards are in tarot?
16: four in each of the four suits.
How this article was prepared
This text was written with the help of AI, based on the sources listed below and on the questions people actually search for. Every factual statement — about the history of decks, what a deck contains, what authors wrote — has a footnote. The text was then checked by a separate AI instance that took no part in writing it: it compared the facts with the footnotes, and errors were corrected. The English version is a translation of the original Russian article.
We describe reading practices — how to shuffle, charge or “cleanse” a deck — as traditions and habits of tarot readers, not as proven methods: there is no scientific evidence for divination. Read more on our editorial policy page. Found a mistake? Let us know via the contact form.
Sources
- Major Arcana — Wikipedia. The Major Arcana: number of cards, origins of tarot, the beginnings of occult interpretation en.wikipedia.org
- Rider–Waite Tarot — Wikipedia. History of the Rider–Waite deck: creators, publisher, year, contents en.wikipedia.org
- Thoth tarot deck — Wikipedia. The Thoth deck: Crowley and Frieda Harris, renamed cards, court cards en.wikipedia.org
- Le tarot divinatoire et occultiste — Encyclopædia Universalis. Court de Gébelin (1781), Etteilla, Paul Christian and the term “arcana”, Oswald Wirth (1889) universalis.fr
