It is faintly visible to the naked eye with an apparent visual magnitude of 4.70.

[2] The annual parallax shift is 14.92 mas[4] as measured from Earth, which yields a distance estimate of around 220 light years.

[5] φ Cygni is a double-lined spectroscopic binary system, which means that the absorption lines of both components are visible in the spectrum.

They are considered to be red clump giants, stars that have begun core helium fusion and lie on the horizontal branch but because of their metallicity and the size of their hydrogen envelope they are found very close to the red giant branch.

[13][7] The pair have an orbital period of 434.208 days, or 1.2 Earth years, a semimajor axis of 26.9 mas, and a high eccentricity of 0.56.