Feet to Meters Converter

How to use the feet to meters converter

1. Select the conversion direction: Feet & Inches to Meters or Meters to Feet & Inches.
2. For ft to m, enter the number of feet and any additional inches. For m to ft, enter the length in meters.
3. The result updates instantly as you type.
4. Use the output for construction plans, height records, or engineering specs.

How the conversion works

The international foot is defined as exactly 0.3048 meters. To convert feet to meters, multiply the total feet by that factor. When inches are included, first convert them to a fraction of a foot by dividing by 12.

For example, 5 feet 9 inches becomes 5 + 9 / 12 = 5.75 feet. Then 5.75 x 0.3048 = 1.7526 meters.

To go from meters to feet (m to ft), divide by 0.3048. The whole number part is feet, and the decimal remainder multiplied by 12 gives inches. One meter equals 1 / 0.3048 = 3.28084 feet, which is 3 feet and 0.28084 x 12 = 3.37 inches.

Common conversions reference

When you need ft to m

Aviation altitudes outside the United States are reported in meters rather than feet. Construction drawings often mix imperial and metric units depending on the country, requiring quick feet to meters checks on site. Sports like track and field use metric distances, but American facilities may still be measured in feet.

If you also need to convert weight alongside length, tools like kg to lbs handle mass, while cm to inches covers smaller metric lengths. For longer distances, see miles to km.

Handling inches greater than twelve

This converter accepts any non-negative number of inches. If you enter 15 inches, it treats that as 1 foot 3 inches automatically because it converts everything to total inches first. This means typing 0 feet and 75 inches gives the same result as 6 feet 3 inches: exactly 1.905 meters.

Negative values are rejected because physical length cannot be negative. If you need to represent a difference or offset, take the absolute value before converting.

Precision and rounding

The factor 0.3048 is exact by international agreement, so there is no approximation error in the math itself. Results are rounded to four decimal places for readability, which corresponds to a tenth of a millimeter. That level of detail exceeds the accuracy of most tape measures used in everyday work.

Floating-point arithmetic in browsers can introduce tiny errors at the fifteenth decimal place. The converter cleans these up before displaying the answer so you never see artifacts like 1.8288000000000001.

History of the foot and meter definitions

The meter was originally defined in 1793 as one ten-millionth of the distance from the equator to the North Pole along a meridian through Paris. It has since been redefined several times, most recently in 1983 based on the speed of light in a vacuum. The foot, meanwhile, has roots in ancient Roman and English measurements, varying slightly by region for centuries.

In 1959, six English-speaking nations agreed on the international yard and pound agreement, fixing the yard at exactly 0.9144 meters. Since one yard equals three feet, this made one foot exactly 0.3048 meters. The United States retained a slightly different survey foot for geodetic work until it was officially deprecated in 2023. Today, all standard feet to meters conversions use the 1959 international definition.

Worked examples

Each result below was produced by the same code the tool runs, so you can check your own numbers against them.