How to Convert Feet to Meters Formula

The formula for how to convert feet to meters is simple: multiply the feet by 0.3048, because one foot is exactly 0.3048 meters: 6 feet is 1.8288 meters, usually rounded to 1.83 meters. The factor is exact, set by the 1959 international agreement that defined the foot. Convert any length instantly with our free unit converter.

The Feet to Meters Formula: Multiply by 0.3048

The conversion is a single multiplication: meters = feet × 0.3048. The factor is exact, not approximate, because the international yard and pound agreement of 1959 defined one yard as exactly 0.9144 meters, and a foot is one third of a yard, so one foot is exactly 0.3048 meters by definition. Apply it to 6 feet: 6 × 0.3048 = 1.8288 meters, which rounds to 1.83 meters at two decimal places, the precision most height listings and real-estate pages use. The shortcut factor 0.3 gives 1.8 meters for 6 feet, which is 2.88 centimeters short, close enough for conversation but not for a doorway, a shelf, or a recorded height. A useful mental check is that the meter figure must always be much smaller than the feet figure, because a meter is longer than a foot: roughly 3.28 feet make a meter, so the meter number should be about a third of the feet number. If your conversion makes the number bigger, you multiplied by 3.28084 instead of 0.3048, which is the reverse conversion. The centimeters to inches converter covers the smaller metric-imperial pair in the same family, and the miles to kilometers converter converts distances by a single exact factor the same way.

Worked Examples: 5 Feet, 10 Feet, and 100 Feet

Work through the values people actually look up, and the method becomes automatic. Five feet is 5 × 0.3048 = 1.524 meters, usually written 1.52 meters. Six feet is 1.8288 meters, or 1.83 meters rounded, the height that appears most often in listings and profiles. Ten feet is 3.048 meters exactly, a clean figure because 10 × 0.3048 = 3.048, which is why ceiling heights and room dimensions in feet convert to such tidy meter values. Twelve feet, a common room length, is 3.6576 meters, or 3.66 meters rounded. Fifty feet, a typical lot width or a long room, is 15.24 meters exactly. One hundred feet is 30.48 meters exactly, and a football field at 300 feet is 91.44 meters, which is why a field described as 100 yards is 91.44 meters long. Notice the pattern: multiples of 25 feet convert to exact two-decimal meter values, because 0.3048 × 25 = 7.62, so room dimensions in feet often land on tidy metric figures. For a single value without the arithmetic, the free unit converter gives the exact figure, and our inches to cm formula guide covers the inch-level conversion underneath it.

The Feet-and-Inches Trap: 5 Feet 10 Inches Is Not 5.10 Feet

The most expensive mistake in this topic is reading a height written as feet and inches as a decimal number. Five feet 10 inches is not 5.10 feet: it is 5 feet plus 10 inches, and 10 inches is 10 ÷ 12 = 0.8333 feet, so the height is 5.8333 feet, which converts to 5.8333 × 0.3048 = 1.778 meters. Treating it as 5.10 feet would give 1.554 meters, an error of more than 22 centimeters, enough to fail a doorway check or misstate a height. The safe method converts the whole height to inches first: total inches = feet × 12 + inches, then meters = total inches × 0.0254, because one inch is exactly 0.0254 meters. For 5 feet 10 inches: 5 × 12 + 10 = 70 inches, and 70 × 0.0254 = 1.778 meters, confirming the first method. Common heights in this form: 5 feet 6 inches is 1.676 meters, 5 feet 8 inches is 1.727 meters, 6 feet 0 inches is 1.829 meters, and 6 feet 2 inches is 1.880 meters. Always convert through inches when the input has an inch part, and never feed a feet-and-inches figure into the feet formula as a decimal. Our cm in a yard guide covers the yard-level version of the same trap, and the centimeters to inches converter checks any single inch value.

Feet to Meters Conversion Chart for Heights and Rooms

A short chart covers the values listings and profiles use most often, and it is worth memorizing the height landmarks. In heights, 5 feet is 1.52 meters, 5 feet 6 inches is 1.68 meters, 5 feet 10 inches is 1.78 meters, 6 feet is 1.83 meters, and 6 feet 4 inches is 1.93 meters. In rooms, 8 feet is 2.44 meters, 10 feet is 3.05 meters, 12 feet is 3.66 meters, 15 feet is 4.57 meters, and 20 feet is 6.10 meters. The pattern in the room figures is that every foot is worth about 30 centimeters, so a quick estimate is feet × 30 centimeters, refined by adding 0.48 centimeters per foot when precision matters: 10 feet estimates to 300 centimeters and refines to 304.8 centimeters. For ceilings, the standard 8-foot ceiling is 2.44 meters, and the 9-foot ceiling marketed as premium is 2.74 meters, a difference of 30 centimeters that is visible in a room. When a conversion will be quoted, write the full figure once, 1.8288 meters, and then round in prose to 1.83 meters with the exact figure nearby, so nobody mistakes the rounded figure for the measured one. Our square feet to square meters formula guide covers the area version, which squares the 0.3048 factor, and the free unit converter gives any value without table lookup.

How to Convert Feet to Meters in Excel

Spreadsheets are where foot measurements usually live, in listings, cut lists, and survey data, so Excel needs its own method. If a feet value sits in cell A1, the meters are simply =A1*0.3048, which gives 1.8288 for 6 feet. Excel also has a built-in function: =CONVERT(A1,"ft","m") does the same conversion, and it has the advantage of documenting the units in the formula itself, so a reader can see that feet are becoming meters without knowing the factor. The trap with CONVERT is the unit codes: "ft" is feet and "m" is meters, but "mi" is miles and "cm" is centimeters, and a wrong code silently converts to the wrong unit. For a feet-and-inches input stored as text like 5'10", split it first: extract the feet with the part before the apostrophe and the inches with the part after it, convert the total to inches, then multiply by 0.0254, rather than feeding the text to the feet formula. The discipline that avoids nearly every error is the same as for any conversion: convert in one direction, round once at the end, and never round intermediate values, because rounding twice compounds the error. Our inches to cm formula guide covers the inch-level Excel equivalent, and the miles to kilometers converter handles the distance scale above feet.

Where Feet-to-Meters Conversion Actually Matters

Three contexts drive nearly all feet-to-meters conversions. Real estate is first: listings written for an international audience quote both units, and a 12-by-15-foot room is 3.66 by 4.57 meters, figures a buyer abroad can compare against furniture measured in meters. Travel and relocation is second: heights, doorway clearances, and rental dimensions arrive in feet in the United States and in meters everywhere else, so a 6-foot-2 person is 1.88 meters tall on a European form. Sports and construction is third: field dimensions, ceiling heights, and material lengths cross the units constantly, and a 100-foot lot is 30.48 meters on a metric survey. The through-line is trust: both representations describe the same length, and showing the conversion explicitly lets the other party verify it instead of taking it on faith. Two habits prevent nearly every error: always multiply by 0.3048, never by 0.3, when the number will be written down, and always convert feet-and-inches through inches first. For the full set of length conversions, our free unit converter covers feet, meters, inches, and centimeters in one place, and the centimeters to inches converter is the page Google already shows searchers for this metric family.