Meters to Feet conversion

Meters to feet

The meter is the base unit of length in the metric system; the foot is the everyday unit of the United States and, for height and altitude, much of the English-speaking world. Since 1959 the foot has been defined as exactly 0.3048 m, so the exact conversion is 1 m = 3.28084 ft. Multiply meters by 3.28084 — or by 3.28 for anything short of a survey.

Mental shortcut

Triple the meters and add 10 %. A 30 m building is 90 + 9 = 99 ft (98.4 exactly). Another anchor: 3 m is almost 10 ft, so a 3-meter ceiling is a 10-foot ceiling.

• 1 m = 3.28 ft
• 2 m = 6.56 ft (6 ft 7 in)
• 5 m = 16.4 ft
• 10 m = 32.81 ft
• 25 m = 82.02 ft (a short-course pool)
• 50 m = 164.04 ft (an Olympic pool)
• 100 m = 328.08 ft
• 1000 m = 3 280.84 ft

Height

People's heights are the most common reason for this conversion. 1.75 m is 5.74 ft, which in feet and inches is 5 ft 9 in (0.74 × 12 = 8.9). To get the feet-and-inches form, multiply the decimal part of the result by 12.

Altitude and depth

Aviation and mountaineering use feet for altitude even in metric countries: a 3 000 m mountain is 9 843 ft, and commercial jets cruise around 11 000 m, 36 000 ft. Divers do the opposite, with metric depth gauges reading 30 m where an older gauge would say 98 ft.

Sport and construction

Running distances are metric worldwide (a 400 m track is 1 312 ft), but American football fields are 100 yards, 91.44 m. Building materials in the US come in 8, 10 and 12-foot lengths — 2.44, 3.05 and 3.66 m — which is why metric plans often end up with awkward offcuts.

Worked examples

A 1.80 m person. 1.8 × 3.2808 = 5.906 ft. The decimal part 0.906 × 12 = 10.9 in, so 5 ft 11 in.

A 2.4 m ceiling. 2.4 × 3.2808 = 7.87 ft — a shade under the 8-foot standard in American houses.

Everest, 8 849 m. 8 849 × 3.2808 = 29 032 ft, the figure printed on most English-language maps.

Frequently asked questions

How many feet are in a meter? 3.2808 — about 3 feet 3⅜ inches.

How do I get feet and inches from meters? Multiply by 3.2808, keep the whole feet, multiply the remainder by 12 for inches: 1.65 m → 5.41 ft → 5 ft 5 in.

Why do pilots use feet? Altitude in feet was standardised by early aviation in English-speaking countries and is now used worldwide for flight levels, even where everything else is metric.

Related conversions

For short lengths, centimeters to inches (÷ 2.54) is more natural; for long ones, kilometers to miles. Feet to meters is the reverse of this page (× 0.3048).

Good to know

Building trades in the US think in feet, and standard dimensions follow: ceilings at 8 or 9 ft (2.44 or 2.74 m), doors 6 ft 8 in tall (2.03 m), studs 16 inches apart (40.6 cm), sheet materials 4 × 8 ft (1.22 × 2.44 m). Metric countries settled on slightly different round numbers — 2.4 m or 2.5 m ceilings, 2.0 or 2.1 m doors, 600 mm stud spacing, 1.2 × 2.4 m sheets — so plans converted from one system to the other end up with awkward offcuts. When adapting a plan, convert the overall dimensions and then re-round to the local material sizes.