How Many CM in a Foot?

One foot is exactly 30.48 centimeters — the foot is defined as 12 inches and the inch as exactly 2.54 cm, so 12 × 2.54 = 30.48 cm with zero rounding error. A 6-foot person is 182.88 cm tall. Convert any length instantly with our free Feet to Centimeters Converter.

The Short Answer: 30.48 cm

How many centimeters in a foot? Exactly 30.48 cm — not approximately, exactly, by international definition. The chain is short: one foot is 12 inches, and one inch is defined as exactly 2.54 centimeters, so 12 × 2.54 = 30.48 cm. There is no measurement uncertainty in this number the way there is in, say, a cup of flour — it is a defined constant, like the 1,000 in a kilogram. Two anchors worth memorizing: 1 ft = 30.48 cm and 1 m = 3.28084 ft. The most common everyday use is height: 5 feet is 152.4 cm, 6 feet is 182.88 cm, and the average American man at 5'9" is 175.26 cm. If you only remember one number from this page, make it 30.48 — every other foot-to-centimeter conversion is that number times a foot count. For the instant answer without the arithmetic, our feet to centimeters converter runs the exact factor both directions.

The Feet to Centimeters Formula

The feet to centimeters formula is one multiplication: centimeters = feet × 30.48. That is the whole thing — no fractions, no offsets, because both units measure length from the same zero. Worked examples: 5 ft → 5 × 30.48 = 152.4 cm. 6.5 ft → 6.5 × 30.48 = 198.12 cm. 0.5 ft (six inches) → 0.5 × 30.48 = 15.24 cm. 25 ft (a long room) → 25 × 30.48 = 762 cm, or 7.62 m. The direction test that catches every mistake: converting feet to centimeters must make the number bigger (centimeters are smaller units), so if your answer shrank, you divided instead of multiplying. Feet-and-inches inputs need one extra step — convert to decimal feet first: 5'9" is 5 + 9/12 = 5.75 ft, then 5.75 × 30.48 = 175.26 cm. Our guide to converting feet and inches to cm covers the compound-height case in full, including the height chart from 4'10" to 6'6".

Foot to CM Conversion Chart

The values people look up most, all exact: 1 ft = 30.48 cm. 2 ft = 60.96 cm. 3 ft = 91.44 cm. 4 ft = 121.92 cm. 5 ft = 152.4 cm. 6 ft = 182.88 cm. 7 ft = 213.36 cm. 8 ft = 243.84 cm. 9 ft = 274.32 cm. 10 ft = 304.8 cm. And the heights that get searched daily: 5'0" = 152.4 cm. 5'5" = 165.1 cm. 5'6" = 167.64 cm. 5'9" = 175.26 cm. 5'10" = 177.8 cm. 6'0" = 182.88 cm. 6'2" = 187.96 cm. 6'5" = 195.58 cm. Notice the pattern in the whole-foot rows: each step adds exactly 30.48, so the chart is just the 30-times table scaled — 3 ft (91.44) is three times 1 ft (30.48), and 10 ft (304.8) is the 1 ft row with the decimal shifted. That linearity is what makes the ×30.48 shortcut for estimates work: multiply feet by 30 and add half a centimeter per foot (6 ft → 180 + 3 = 183 cm, only 0.12 off the exact 182.88). For anything off the chart, the ×30.48 rule beats scrolling — 12.5 ft is 381 cm, and the 10-ft row (304.8) confirms the scale.

CM to Feet: the Reverse Formula

The reverse formula is the exact mirror: feet = centimeters ÷ 30.48. A 183 cm doorway is 183 ÷ 30.48 = 6.004 ft — essentially 6 feet. A 100 cm meter stick is 100 ÷ 30.48 = 3.28084 ft. A 250 cm ceiling is 250 ÷ 30.48 = 8.202 ft, or 8'2.4". The direction test flips: converting centimeters to feet must make the number smaller. The round-trip check closes every calculation: 6 ft → 182.88 cm → 182.88 ÷ 30.48 = 6.0 ft exactly. Where the reverse gets used: reading European furniture dimensions (a 200 cm sofa is 6.56 ft — will it fit a 6.5 ft wall? No, by 2 cm), converting medical measurements, and checking metric product specs against imperial spaces. If you convert centimeter values constantly in the other direction, our dedicated centimeters to inches converter handles cm → in instantly, and it is one of the pages Google already shows us for — every link it earns pushes it closer to the top of results.

Foot to CM in Excel

For a column of foot measurements, Excel needs one formula: if feet are in column A, put =A2*30.48 in B2 and fill down. Feet-and-inches text like 5'9" needs parsing first — if feet are in A2 and inches in B2, use =A2*30.48+B2*2.54. Two refinements for real sheets: wrap in ROUND for clean output — =ROUND(A2*30.48,1) gives 175.3 instead of 175.26 — and label the columns explicitly ('Feet' and 'CM'), because an unlabeled column is how values get converted twice by the next person who opens the file. Excel also has a native converter: =CONVERT(A2,"ft","cm") — the unit codes are case-sensitive and abbreviated, and it returns the same 30.48 factor. Google Sheets accepts the identical formulas. One gotcha: CONVERT's "ft" code means the international foot (0.3048 m exactly) — the same foot this whole page uses — so there is no survey-foot discrepancy to worry about for everyday conversions. For the inches-side Excel workflow, see our centimeters to inches in Excel guide, which covers the =CONVERT(A2,"cm","in") syntax and its case-sensitivity trap.

Why 30.48 Is Exact: the 1959 Definition

Thirty-point-four-eight is exact because the inch and the foot are defined, not measured. In 1959, the International Yard and Pound Agreement fixed the yard at exactly 0.9144 meters — signed by the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa — and everything else followed by arithmetic: one yard is 3 feet, so one foot is exactly 0.3048 meters, which is exactly 30.48 centimeters. Before 1959, the US and British inches differed by about two parts per million (the US used the Mendenhall Order definition of 39.37 inches per meter); the agreement erased the difference. This is why the conversion never drifts: it is not 'about 30.5 cm per foot' the way a cup of flour is 'about 120 grams' — it is 30.48 by treaty. The same agreement is why 1 inch = 2.54 cm exactly, a fact our inches to centimeters guide builds its whole formula on. Whenever a conversion factor has more decimal places than seems reasonable — 2.20462 pounds per kilogram, 1.609344 km per mile — a definition like this one is usually behind it.

The Decimal-Feet Trap (5.5 ft Is Not 5'5")

The most common foot-conversion mistake is reading decimal feet as feet-and-inches: 5.5 ft is 5 feet 6 inches, not 5'5". The decimal part is a fraction of a foot, and 0.5 ft × 12 = 6 inches. So 5.5 ft = 167.64 cm, while 5'5" = 165.1 cm — a 2.5 cm gap that matters for clothing, doorways, and medical charts. The conversion both ways: decimal feet = feet + inches/12 (5'5" → 5 + 5/12 = 5.4167 ft → 165.1 cm), and inches = decimal-part × 12 (5.75 ft → 0.75 × 12 = 9 in → 5'9"). Surveyors and engineers write decimal feet deliberately (6.25 ft on a blueprint), while everyday speech uses feet-and-inches ('six foot three') — the mismatch is where the errors breed. A second trap: the US survey foot (0.3048006 m), which differs from the international foot by 2 parts per million. It mattered only for land surveying over miles of distance, and the US retired it in 2022 — for every conversion on this page, the international foot is the right one. When in doubt, convert with the formula slowly once, then confirm with our feet to centimeters converter — agreement between two methods is the real proof.

Quick Reference: Foot-to-CM Cheat Sheet

Everything in one place: 1 ft = 30.48 cm exactly (12 × 2.54). Formula: cm = ft × 30.48; ft = cm ÷ 30.48. Estimate: ft × 30, then add 0.5 cm per foot. Heights: 5'0"=152.4, 5'6"=167.64, 5'9"=175.26, 6'0"=182.88, 6'2"=187.96 cm. Excel: =A2*30.48. Decimal-feet check: 5.5 ft = 5'6" = 167.64 cm, not 5'5". 1959 definition: 1 yd = 0.9144 m exactly. Bookmark this page alongside our feet to centimeters converter, our centimeters to inches converter for the reverse direction, and the ToolNest homepage for all 130+ free tools — between the cheat sheet and the converters, every imperial-metric length converts in seconds.