How Many Cards Are in a Tarot Deck?

Q: How many Minor Arcana cards are there?

56: four suits (Wands, Cups, Swords, Pentacles) of 14 cards each, Ace through Ten plus Page, Knight, Queen, and King.

Written by the Toe Bean Tarot team Sep 21, 2026 · 3 min read We built a full tarot curriculum: 98 guided lesson sections, spaced repetition, and two original 78-card decks.

How many cards are in a tarot deck? 78. Every standard deck has 22 Major Arcana plus 56 Minor Arcana, and the Minors split into four suits of 14 cards. That count has held since the 1400s, so whatever you learn on one deck works on the next one you pick up.

The Fool from the Toe Bean Waite tarot deck, one of the 22 Major Arcana in the 78 cards of a tarot deck. — Major Arcana, pip card, court card: the three kinds of card in every tarot deck.

The Ace of Cups from the Toe Bean Waite deck, a pip card: a cat paw holding a gold cup above lily pads. — Major Arcana, pip card, court card: the three kinds of card in every tarot deck.

The 78 cards, broken down

22 Major Arcana: numbered 0 (The Fool) to XXI (The World). The big life themes. See the Major Arcana guide.
40 pip cards: Ace through Ten in each of the four suits. Everyday situations and moods.
16 court cards: Page, Knight, Queen, and King of each suit. People, roles, and ways of behaving. See court cards explained.

22 + 40 + 16 = 78. The 40 pips and 16 courts together are the 56 Minor Arcana.

The four suits

Wands: energy, action, creativity.
Cups: emotion, relationships, the heart.
Swords: the mind, conflict, hard truths.
Pentacles: money, work, the body, the material world.

The Knight of Wands from the Toe Bean Waite deck, a black cat in armor riding forward with a wand. — One Knight per suit. Fourteen cards per suit, four suits, and the Minors come to 56.

The Knight of Cups from the Toe Bean Waite deck, a black cat knight holding out a gold cup. — One Knight per suit. Fourteen cards per suit, four suits, and the Minors come to 56.

Why some decks have 79 or 80 cards

Open a new box and you may count more than 78. The extras are usually a title card, an artist's card, or a blank you can write on. Some publishers add a bonus card as a joke or a signature; the Thoth deck, for example, ships with two spare versions of its Magician. None of these are part of the reading deck. Take them out, or keep a bonus card if you enjoy it, and read with the 78.

If a deck has 44 cards or 30 or 100, it isn't a tarot deck at all, it's an oracle deck, which follows its creator's rules instead of tarot's. Tarot vs oracle cards explains the difference. Lenormand, another cousin, has 36.

How to learn 78 cards without panic

Don't memorize 78 separate things. Learn the structure first (22 big cards, four suits with a theme each, four court roles), and every card becomes a combination of pieces you already know. That's the method in how to memorize tarot card meanings, and the beginner's roadmap puts it in order. Everything else about owning a deck, from choosing one to keeping it in one piece, is in the tarot deck guide.

Browsing all 78 cards with their meanings side by side is the thing the Toe Bean Tarot app does for you: every card opens to its keywords, upright and reversed meanings, and an imagery breakdown, and one tap adds it to a spaced-repetition review queue (Android only).

Quick answers

How many Major Arcana cards are there?

22, numbered 0 (The Fool) through XXI (The World).

How many Minor Arcana cards are there?

56: four suits of 14 cards each, Ace through Ten plus Page, Knight, Queen, and King.

Why does my tarot deck have more than 78 cards?

Extras are usually a title card, an artist's card, a blank, or a publisher's bonus card. Take them out before reading. The 78 are the deck.

Is a regular deck of playing cards related to tarot?

Yes, they're cousins. Both have four suits; the 52-card deck has one fewer court card per suit and no trumps. The Joker is a later addition, not The Fool.