Meters to Feet Converter
Convert meters to feet — heights, room sizes, and spec sheets written in metric.
Updated
feet
6.56ft
2 m = 6.56 ft
In short
How many feet is 1 meter?
One meter is 3.28 feet, which is 3 feet 3.37 inches. Divide meters by 0.3048, the exact definition of the foot under the 1959 International Yard and Pound Agreement, or multiply by its reciprocal 3.280839895. A 2 m ceiling is 6.56 ft and 100 m is 328.08 ft.
Decimal feet are rarely the answer anyone wants. The last step is usually turning the fractional part into inches by multiplying it by twelve.
meters to feet — quick reference
| meters (m) | feet (ft) |
|---|---|
| 1 m | 3.28 ft |
| 1.5 m | 4.92 ft |
| 1.8 m | 5.91 ft |
| 2 m | 6.56 ft |
| 5 m | 16.40 ft |
| 10 m | 32.81 ft |
| 50 m | 164.04 ft |
| 100 m | 328.08 ft |
The formula, worked line by line
This conversion has an exact constant going one way and an endless decimal coming back. The foot is defined in terms of the meter, not the other way round, so meters to feet is a division by an exact number rather than a multiplication by a tidy one.
“The avoirdupois pound is exactly 0.45359237 kilograms; the yard is exactly 0.9144 meters.”
A foot is a third of that yard, so exactly 0.3048 meters. The reciprocal, 3.280839895013123 and continuing, is what you would multiply by instead. This tool divides by the exact value, because division by the defined constant cannot accumulate error no matter how large the input grows.
feet = meters ÷ 0.3048
= meters × 3.280839895…
inches = meters × 39.3700787…
whole feet = the integer part; inches = the decimal part × 12
2 m → 2 ÷ 0.3048 = 6.5617 ft = 6 ft 6.74 in- Meters entered
- 2
- Exact divisor
- 0.3048 m per ft
- Division
- 2 ÷ 0.3048 = 6.561679…
- Decimal tail in inches
- 0.561679 × 12 = 6.74 in
- Feet and inches
- 6 ft 6.74 in
Two meters is a good number to hold on to because it is just over six and a half feet. Door frames, wardrobe heights and bunk clearances in metric-built homes cluster around it, and the mental picture of six foot seven is close enough to judge whether something will fit through the opening.
The mental shortcut worth trusting
Multiply the meters by three and add ten percent. For 10 m: three times is 30, plus 3 is 33, against a true 32.81. The trick works because a meter is a shade under 3.3 feet, and it over-reads by about 0.6 percent, so your estimate is always a touch generous rather than short.
- At 10 m: estimate 33 ft
- true 32.81 ft
- At 50 m: estimate 165 ft
- true 164.04 ft
- At 100 m: estimate 330 ft
- true 328.08 ft
The estimate runs about 0.6 percent high, which is under two feet across a hundred meters.
Square meters need a different factor
Areas do not use 3.28. They use its square, so one square meter is 10.7639 square feet and a 60 square meter apartment is 645.83 square feet. Multiplying the area by 3.28 instead is the single most common error in property listings that carry both units, and it under-states the space by a factor of more than three.
Volume goes one step further again, at 35.3147 cubic feet per cubic meter. Shipping quotes, skip hire and concrete orders are all priced by volume, so the cubed factor is the one to reach for whenever a number is describing how much of something fits inside a space rather than how far across it is.
How to use the meters to feet converter
Most of the world writes lengths in meters, and a great deal of the world reads them in feet. Property listings, hiking maps, ship drafts, ceiling specs, dive tables, drone rules and stadium dimensions all arrive metric, and the number only becomes intuitive once it is feet, usually feet and inches.
Type the meters in and the feet appear as you type. The tool divides by 0.3048 rather than multiplying by a truncated 3.28, so the result stays exact until the display rounds it. Press Swap when the traffic runs the other way and a form wants your figure back in metric.
3.28 ft
One meter
1 ÷ 0.3048, exact factor
5 ft 10.87 in
1.8 m written the way it is spoken
328.08 ft
100 m, the length of a sprint straight
Human height is the conversion people run most, and it is also where decimal feet are least useful. Nobody says they are 5.91 feet tall. The figure that means something is 5 feet 10.87 inches, and getting there means one extra multiplication that a lot of converters quietly skip.
- 1.60 m
- 5 ft 2.99 in
- 1.65 m
- 5 ft 4.96 in
- 1.70 m
- 5 ft 6.93 in
- 1.75 m
- 5 ft 8.90 in
- 1.80 m
- 5 ft 10.87 in
- 1.85 m
- 6 ft 0.83 in
- 1.90 m
- 6 ft 2.80 in
A conversion ladder and nothing more. No row here is a norm, a target, or a judgement about anyone.
Altitude is the other everyday case, and it is the one where the units genuinely disagree in law rather than in habit. Aviation and drone limits are written in feet in the United States and in meters across Europe, so the two ceilings sit close together without ever matching.
Smaller metric measurements, in inches
Below about a meter the useful unit is inches, not feet. Centimeters convert straight across for waist sizes, screen widths, luggage and anything measured with a tape.
Open the cm to inches converter →A ladder of metric readings converted to decimal feet and then to feet with inches, which is the format the answer is normally spoken in. This is a conversion ladder only: no row is a norm or a recommendation.
| Meters | Feet | Feet and inches |
|---|---|---|
| 1 m | 3.28 ft | 3 ft 3.37 in |
| 1.5 m | 4.92 ft | 4 ft 11.06 in |
| 1.6 m | 5.25 ft | 5 ft 2.99 in |
| 1.65 m | 5.41 ft | 5 ft 4.96 in |
| 1.7 m | 5.58 ft | 5 ft 6.93 in |
| 1.75 m | 5.74 ft | 5 ft 8.90 in |
| 1.8 m | 5.91 ft | 5 ft 10.87 in |
| 1.85 m | 6.07 ft | 6 ft 0.83 in |
| 1.9 m | 6.23 ft | 6 ft 2.80 in |
| 2 m | 6.56 ft | 6 ft 6.74 in |
| 2.4 m | 7.87 ft | 7 ft 10.49 in |
| 2.5 m | 8.20 ft | 8 ft 2.43 in |
| 3 m | 9.84 ft | 9 ft 10.11 in |
| 5 m | 16.40 ft | 16 ft 4.85 in |
| 10 m | 32.81 ft | 32 ft 9.70 in |
| 50 m | 164.04 ft | 164 ft 0.50 in |
| 100 m | 328.08 ft | 328 ft 1.01 in |
Why decimal feet are almost never the answer
The output of any meters to feet conversion is a decimal, and decimal feet are a unit almost nobody uses in speech. Surveyors and civil engineers do, which is why the format exists at all. Everyone else wants feet and inches, and the gap between the two formats is where errors are born.
The conversion is one multiplication. Take the part after the decimal point, multiply by twelve, and that is your inches. In 5.9055 feet the tail is 0.9055, and 0.9055 times twelve is 10.87 inches, so 1.8 meters is 5 ft 10.87 in. Round the inches, never the feet.
- Divide by the exact factor
- 2.4 ÷ 0.3048 = 7.8740 ft
- Whole feet
- 7 ft
- Decimal tail times twelve
- 0.8740 × 12 = 10.49 in
- Ceiling height
- 7 ft 10.49 in
That is the trap in reverse: a 2.4 m ceiling, the standard height in a great many metric-built homes, is not 8 feet. It is nearly two inches short of 8 feet, which is exactly enough to matter for a tall bookcase, a door blank, or a ceiling fan with a downrod.
The rounding order matters more than it looks. If you round 7.8740 feet to 7.87 and then multiply 0.87 by twelve you get 10.44 inches, a full half-inch adrift from the true 10.49. Always take the inches from the unrounded figure, which is what this converter does underneath the display.
Altitude rules written in feet and in meters
Recreational drone flying is the clearest live example of two regulators picking different units for the same idea. In the United States, FAA rules for small unmanned aircraft in 14 CFR Part 107 set a 400 foot ceiling above ground level. In the European Union, Regulation 2019/947 sets the open category ceiling at 120 meters.
Those are not the same number. Four hundred feet is 121.92 meters, and 120 meters is 393.70 feet, so the European limit is about six feet lower. Anyone flying the same aircraft on both sides of the Atlantic is working to two ceilings that look interchangeable in conversation and are not in a logbook.
121.92 m
The FAA 400 ft ceiling in metric
393.70 ft
The EASA 120 m ceiling in feet
6.30 ft
The gap between the two limits
The same split shows up in mountaineering and hiking. Trail signs and topographic maps in metric countries mark elevation gain in meters, so a 1,000 m climb is 3,280.84 feet and a 500 m one is 1,640.42 feet. Reading those as though they were feet understates the effort by a factor of more than three.
Every meters value, worked out
28 common meters figures each get their own page, with the answer at full precision, the arithmetic, what rounding costs, and the nearest real-world reference point on the scale.
Questions people ask
Sources
Where the constants and formulas on this page come from. Each line names the figure it backs.
The international foot is defined as exactly 0.3048 metres.
NIST Guide to the SI, Appendix B.8 — Factors for units listed alphabetically — NIST
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