Feet to Meters
Convert feet to meters in your browser. A foot is exactly 0.3048 meters, which makes the factor exact.
m = ft × 0.3048
NIST SP 811 (2008), Appendix B.8 — foot (ft) to meter (m) = 3.048 E−01
Room dimensions, ceiling heights, altitudes and swimming pool lengths cross this line all the time. A foot is twelve inches and an inch is exactly 25.4 millimeters, so a foot is exactly 0.3048 meters. Nothing here is approximate, which is worth knowing before reaching for the usual "about a third of a meter".
How it is calculated
m = ft × 0.3048
Treating a foot as 0.3 meters is out by 1.6 %, which is fine for pacing out a garden and useless for anything you cut. The exact factor is no harder to use and does not accumulate error over a distance.
Source: NIST SP 811 (2008), Appendix B.8 — foot (ft) to meter (m) = 3.048 E−01
Common values
| feet | meters |
|---|---|
| 1 | 0.3048 |
| 3 | 0.9144 |
| 6 | 1.8288 |
| 8 | 2.4384 |
| 10 | 3.048 |
| 12 | 3.6576 |
| 20 | 6.096 |
| 50 | 15.24 |
| 100 | 30.48 |
| 328 | 99.9744 |
| 1,000 | 304.8 |
Questions people ask
- How do I convert a height like 5 foot 10?
- Turn it all into feet first: 5 feet 10 inches is 5.8333 feet, which is 1.778 meters. Converting the feet and inches separately and adding the results works too, but it is easier to slip up.
- Why is a foot exactly 0.3048 meters?
- Because it inherits the definition of the inch. Since 1959 an inch has been exactly 25.4 millimeters, and twelve of those come to 304.8 millimeters. The foot has no separate definition of its own any more.
- What about the survey foot?
- It existed, differed by two parts in a million, and was used in US land surveying. It was retired at the end of 2022, so unless you are reading old survey records, the foot you want is the international one.
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