Earth’s orbit lies immediately outside Venus’s orbit.
Venus is the second planet from the Sun, while Earth is the third. That places Venus’s orbit just inside Earth’s, making Earth the next planetary orbit outward. Mercury lies inside Venus’s orbit; Mars is the next planet beyond Earth, followed farther out by Jupiter and the other outer planets.
This orbital arrangement explains why Venus is an inferior planet when Earth is used as the reference. Venus can pass between Earth and the Sun at inferior conjunction, although its orbital tilt means a direct solar transit is rare. Venus’s orbit takes about 224.7 Earth days, compared with Earth’s one-year orbit.
The phrase “immediately outside” refers to orbital distance from the Sun, not to the planets’ momentary positions in the sky. Because planets move at different speeds, Venus and Earth can be widely separated or relatively close at different times. Their orbital relationship, however, remains fixed: Earth is the next planetary orbit beyond Venus.