Feet To Meters Converter

1. Keep Direction on Feet to meters, and leave the foot definition on International foot unless you are reading a survey drawn before 2023.
2. Type the length in feet. For a height or a room written as feet plus inches, put the inches in Extra inches, for example 5 and 10.
3. Read the meters at once. The panel also shows the exact factor, the length in centimeters and millimeters, and a quick check you can do in your head.

Here is what each result means:

A foot is an inch-pound unit of length equal to 12 inches, and a meter is the SI base unit of length. One foot is exactly 0.3048 m, so a meter is about 3.28 feet long.

The meter is defined through the speed of light: light travels 299,792,458 m in one second, as NIST explains on its SI length page. Every other length unit, including the foot, is now tied to the meter.

The foot is used every day in the United States for heights, rooms, lumber and property lines. In the UK it is still common for personal height and for some building talk, and UK law defines it as one third of a yard, with the yard fixed at 0.9144 m. Aviation in most of the world also reports altitude in feet. So anyone who reads a metric drawing, a European product sheet or a science paper keeps meeting both units.

This page is about feet into meters. If you start with meters, switch the direction, or use the separate inches to meters converter when your measurement is only in inches.

The converter multiplies your feet by 0.3048. There is no rounding in that factor, so the only rounding is the one you choose for the answer.

1. Turn any extra inches into feet by dividing by 12. Ten inches is 0.8333 ft, so 5 ft 10 in is 5.8333 ft.
2. Multiply the total feet by 0.3048. For 5.8333 ft that gives 1.778 m, which is exact because 70 in x 0.0254 = 1.778.
3. Round at the end. Two decimal places, or centimeters, suit heights and rooms. Keep three or more for surveying and engineering.

The factor comes from the 1959 agreement that fixed the inch at 25.4 mm. Since a foot is 12 inches, 12 x 25.4 mm = 304.8 mm = 0.3048 m. NIST SP 811 lists the foot to meter factor as 3.048 E-01, and marks it as exact.

Personal height. A person who is 5 ft 10 in tall has 5 + 10 / 12 = 5.8333 ft. Times 0.3048 gives 1.778 m, or 177.8 cm.

Ceiling height. A standard 8 ft ceiling is 8 x 0.3048 = 2.4384 m. A taller 10 ft ceiling is 3.048 m.

Building height. A building with 30 storeys at a 10 ft floor-to-floor height rises about 300 ft. That is 300 x 0.3048 = 91.44 m.

Aircraft altitude. A cruising altitude of 35,000 ft is 35,000 x 0.3048 = 10,668 m, or about 10.7 km. An altitude of 10,000 ft is 3,048 m.

Running track. Going the other way, 100 m / 0.3048 = 328.084 ft, which is 328 ft 1.0 in.

For hills and trails, the elevation gain per mile calculator uses the same feet to meters link for climbing rates.

The factor itself never changes. Only three things change the answer you read: which foot you pick, how you enter inches, and how you round.

International Foot or US Survey Foot

The US survey foot is 1200/3937 m, or 0.3048006096 m. It is 2 parts per million longer than the international foot. NIST retired it: December 31, 2022 was the last day it should be used, and from January 1, 2023 the international foot applies to all work except historic and legacy records.

Feet Plus Inches

Heights and rooms are often written as 5 ft 10 in. Typing 5.10 into the feet box is wrong, because 0.10 ft is only 1.2 in. Use the Extra inches field, or divide the inches by 12 yourself.

Rounding

The tool keeps full precision. Round for the job: whole centimeters for a height, millimeters for a cabinet, and full precision for coordinates and long survey lines.

Very Long Distances

The survey foot gap grows with length. Over 1 mile, 5,280 ft, it is 3.2 mm. Over 1,000,000 ft, a size common in state plane coordinates, it is 0.61 m, which is 2 ft.

For almost every everyday job, the two feet give the same answer. The difference matters only in land surveying and mapping with large coordinates.

NIST notes that the 1959 change allowed one exception for geodetic surveying. That exception caused two nearly identical feet to live side by side for decades, which led to errors in maps and property data.

Heights on Forms and Travel Documents

A height of 6 ft becomes 1.83 m, and 5 ft 4 in becomes 1.63 m. Many countries ask for height in meters or centimeters.

Rooms, Buildings and Home Projects

US floor plans use feet, but many product sheets, rugs and appliances list meters or millimeters. Convert a 12 ft wall to 3.6576 m before you order a 3.6 m shelf system. For areas, convert each side first, or use a square feet tool, because square feet do not scale by 0.3048.

Altitude, Climbing and Aviation

Pilots, hikers and drone users often see heights in feet. A 14,000 ft peak is 4,267.2 m. The longer feet to meters conversion guide walks through more of these cases.

Every value below uses the exact 0.3048 factor. Values are shown with up to 4 decimal places.

Five feet is exactly 1.524 m and 1,000 ft is exactly 304.8 m, so you can build other values by adding rows.

1. Dividing by 3 Instead of by 3.28

Treating a meter as 3 ft makes every answer about 9 percent too big. 30 ft is 9.144 m, not 10 m.

2. Reading 5.10 Ft as 5 Ft 10 In

Decimal feet are not feet and inches. 5.10 ft is 5 ft 1.2 in, while 5 ft 10 in is 5.8333 ft.

3. Converting Square Feet with the Length Factor

One square foot is 0.09290304 square meters, not 0.3048. Area needs the factor squared.

4. Rounding the Factor Too Early

Using 0.3 for the foot is 1.57 percent low. On 35,000 ft that is 168 m off.

5. Mixing Survey Feet into New Work

Old plats may use the survey foot. New drawings made after 2022 should use the international foot, so check the date and notes on the map.

6. Assuming Every "ft" on a Map Is the Same

State plane coordinates can run past 1,000,000 ft. There, the 2 ppm gap is about 2 ft, which is enough to misplace a boundary.

The conversion is exact for the international foot, because 0.3048 has no hidden decimals. Any error comes from the input, the foot you choose or your final rounding.

One foot is exactly 0.3048 m, which is 30.48 cm or 304.8 mm. The value is set by definition, so it never needs updating.

Multiply the feet by 0.3, then add 1.6 percent. The result is exact, because 0.3 x 1.016 = 0.3048. For 50 ft: 15 + 0.24 = 15.24 m.

Six feet is 1.8288 m, usually written as 1.83 m. Six feet 2 inches is 1.8796 m.

Only for historic and legacy records. NIST says the survey foot should not be used after December 31, 2022, and the international foot applies to all new work.

The survey foot is 2 parts per million longer. That is 0.6 mm over 1,000 ft, 3.2 mm over a mile and about 2 ft over 1,000,000 ft.

One meter is 3.280839895 ft, or 3 ft 3.37 in. For a quick answer, 3.28 is within 0.03 percent.

Multiply square feet by 0.09290304, which is 0.3048 squared. A 200 sq ft room is 18.58 square meters. This tool converts length only.

Ten thousand feet is exactly 3,048 m, or 3.048 km. Multiply by 0.3048, or move the decimal and use 3.048 for each 10 ft.

Yes. UK law defines the foot as one third of a yard, and the yard as 0.9144 m. That gives the same 0.3048 m foot used in the US.

Most gaps come from a rounded factor, such as 0.305 or 3.28, or from rounding the answer early. Survey software may also still be set to the legacy survey foot.

• Exact conversion factor: foot to meter, 3.048 E-01 (NIST SP 811, Appendix B.8).
• The U.S. survey foot and its retirement after December 31, 2022 (NIST Physical Measurement Laboratory).
• How the meter is defined from the speed of light (NIST Office of Weights and Measures, SI Units - Length).
• UK definitions of the yard (0.9144 m) and the foot (1/3 yard) (Weights and Measures Act 1985, Schedule 1, legislation.gov.uk).