Lumber and material orders
Timber is sold in whole feet but cut to inch precision. Converting a 152-inch cut list into feet tells you how many 8-, 10- or 12-foot boards to buy, and how much offcut you will have.
Length
Convert feet to inches
1 foot equals 12 inches. Enter a value below to convert instantly.
Feet to inches is a conversion within a single system, which makes it the simplest on the site: multiply by 12. Its usefulness is in the places where a measurement has to be expressed in one unit only — order forms, material lists and area calculations that will not accept a compound figure.
Need the other direction? Convert inch to foot →
Formula
Multiply the number of feet by 12 to get inches.
Step by step
- Start with 1 ft.
- Multiply by the conversion factor 12.
- 1 × 12 = 12 in.
How to convert feet to fractional inches
Rulers, tape measures and drill bits are marked in halves, quarters, eighths and sixteenths, so a decimal answer usually has to be snapped to the nearest mark before you can use it. Convert to decimal inches first, then multiply the part after the decimal point by 16 and round to a whole number — that is your number of sixteenths. Reduce the fraction if it divides evenly.
One foot is 12 in, which is 12 in to the nearest sixteenth, or 12 in to the nearest sixty-fourth. The fraction column in the table below is rounded to the nearest sixteenth.
Feet to Inches conversion table
| Feet (ft) | Inches (decimal) | Inches (fraction) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 12 | 12 |
| 2 | 24 | 24 |
| 3 | 36 | 36 |
| 5 | 60 | 60 |
| 10 | 120 | 120 |
| 20 | 240 | 240 |
| 50 | 600 | 600 |
| 100 | 1,200 | 1,200 |
| 500 | 6,000 | 6,000 |
| 1,000 | 12,000 | 12,000 |
Where feet and inches are used together
Area and volume calculations
Square footage needs both dimensions in the same unit. A room 10 ft 6 in by 12 ft 3 in has to become 10.5 ft by 12.25 ft before you multiply — mixing feet and inches into the multiplication is one of the most common estimating errors there is.
Heights on forms
Some systems store height as total inches (a 5 ft 9 in person is 69 inches) because it avoids storing two fields. Converting in and out of that representation is routine in medical and sports databases.
Surveying and civil drawings
US civil engineering uses decimal feet — a station is 100.00 ft, not 100 ft 0 in — while architectural drawings on the same project use feet and inches. Converting between the two conventions is a daily task on those jobs.
Everyday feet worth knowing
Values people actually look up, with the reason each one comes up. Every figure is calculated with the same engine as the converter above.
| Foot (ft) | Inch (in) | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 12 | The base conversion |
| 2 | 24 | A short shelf |
| 4 | 48 | A sheet of plywood's short side |
| 6 | 72 | A common adult height |
| 8 | 96 | A sheet of plywood's long side |
| 10 | 120 | A storey height |
| 12 | 144 | A standard lumber length |
| 100 | 1,200 | A survey station |
How these two units are defined
A foot is exactly 12 inches; both are defined against the metre (0.3048 m and 0.0254 m respectively). The relationship has been fixed for centuries, so unlike cross-system conversions there is no history of competing definitions to worry about. What varies is presentation: engineering and construction in the US use decimal feet, while carpentry and everyday speech use feet-and-inches with binary fractions.
Rounding and precision
Multiplying by 12 is exact, so nothing is lost going from feet to inches. Going the other way, thirds recur: 4 inches is exactly 1/3 foot, which is 0.333… in decimal feet. Carrying 0.33 through a long calculation drifts; carry the fraction or extra digits and round only at the end. For carpentry, express the remainder as inches and sixteenths rather than as a decimal at all.
Mistakes people make with this conversion
-
Multiplying feet-and-inches directly
10 ft 6 in × 12 ft 3 in is not 10.6 × 12.3. The inches must become a decimal fraction of a foot first — 6 in is 0.5 ft, not 0.6 ft.
-
Reading decimal feet as feet and inches
8.4 feet is 8 feet 4.8 inches, not 8 feet 4 inches. The two conventions look alike and are 0.8 inches apart here.
-
Losing the remainder on a cut list
Rounding each piece to the nearest foot before summing can under-order material by a full board across a long list. Sum in inches, convert once.
Read more about these units
Sources for this page
Content on this page last reviewed 12 August 2026. Spotted an error? Report it — see also how these values are calculated.
Convert Foot to other length units
1 ft expressed in every other length unit on this site.
- Meter m 0.3048
- Kilometer km 0.0003048
- Hectometer hm 0.003048
- Dekameter dam 0.03048
- Decimeter dm 3.048
- Centimeter cm 30.48
- Millimeter mm 304.8
- Micrometer µm 304,800
- Nanometer nm 304,800,000
- Picometer pm 304,800,000,000
- Femtometer fm 304,800,000,000,000
- Attometer am 3.048e+17
- Megameter Mm 3.048e-7
- Gigameter Gm 3.048e-10
- Terameter Tm 3.048e-13
- Petameter Pm 3.048e-16
- Exameter Em 3.048e-19
- Angstrom Å 3,048,000,000
- Mile mi 0.00018939394
- Yard yd 0.33333333
- Foot ft 1
- Inch in 12
- Kiloyard kyd 0.00033333333
- League lea 0.000063131313
- Furlong fur 0.0015151515
- Chain ch 0.015151515
- Rod rd 0.060606061
- Perch perch 0.060606061
- Pole pole 0.060606061
- Rope rope 0.05
- Fathom fath 0.16666667
- Link li 1.5151515
- Hand hand 3
- Ell ell 0.26666667
- Barleycorn barleycorn 36
- Mil mil 12,000
- Microinch µin 12,000,000
- Caliber cl 1,200
- Centiinch cin 1,200
- Nautical Mile nmi 0.00016457883
- Nautical Mile (UK) NM (UK) 0.00016447368
- Nautical League nl 0.000054859611
- Nautical League (UK) nl (UK) 0.000054824561
- Mile (US survey) mi (US) 0.00018939356
- Furlong (US survey) fur (US) 0.0015151485
- Chain (US survey) ch (US) 0.015151485
- Rod (US survey) rd (US) 0.060605939
- Fathom (US survey) fath (US) 0.16666633
- Foot (US survey) ft (US) 0.999998
- Link (US survey) li (US) 1.5151485
- Inch (US survey) in (US) 11.999976
- League (statute) st.league 0.000063131187
- Pica pica 72
- Point pt 864
- Twip twip 17,280
- Light Year ly 3.2217385e-17
- Astronomical Unit AU 2.0374622e-12
- Parsec pc 9.8778953e-18
- Kiloparsec kpc 9.8778953e-21
- Megaparsec Mpc 9.8778953e-24
- Earth's Equatorial Radius R⊕(eq) 4.7788249e-8
- Earth's Polar Radius R⊕(pol) 4.7949013e-8
- Earth's Distance from Sun d⊕☉ 2.0374332e-12
- Sun's Radius R☉ 4.3811988e-10
- Bohr Radius a₀ 5,759,885,200
- Electron Radius (classical) rₑ 108,164,110,000,000
- Fermi F 304,800,000,000,000
- X-unit X 3,041,673,300,000
- Planck Length ℓP 1.885841e+34
- Mile (Roman) mi (Rom) 0.00020597322
- Roman Actus actus 0.0085910653
- Arpent arpent 0.0052083333
- Cubit (UK) cubit 0.66666667
- Cubit (Greek) cubit (Gk) 0.6586169
- Long Cubit long cubit 0.57142857
- Reed reed 0.11111111
- Long Reed long reed 0.095238095
- Span (cloth) span 1.3333333
- Finger (cloth) finger 2.6666667
- Nail (cloth) nail 5.3333333
- Handbreadth handbreadth 4
- Fingerbreadth fingerbreadth 16
- Aln aln 0.51332335
- Famn famn 0.17110778
- Ken ken 0.14388489
- Russian Archin archin 0.42857143
- Vara Castellana vara (cast) 0.3649635
- Vara Conuquera vara (con) 0.1216545
- Vara de Tarea vara (tarea) 0.1216545
- Ja (Korean foot) 자 1.00584
- Chi 치 10.0584
- Pun 푼 100.584
- Gan 간 0.16764
- Jang 장 0.100584
- Ri (Korean) 리 0.00077611111
About the foot
The foot (ft) is a Imperial unit of length.
About the inch
The inch (in) is a Imperial unit of length. Defined internationally as exactly 25.4 millimeters since 1959.
Related conversions
Frequently asked questions
How many inches are in a foot?
Exactly 12. Both units are defined against the metre — a foot is 0.3048 m and an inch is 0.0254 m — and 0.3048 ÷ 0.0254 is exactly 12.
How do I convert 5 feet 9 inches to inches?
Multiply the feet by 12 and add the inches: 5 × 12 = 60, plus 9, gives 69 inches. Height databases often store the total-inch figure for exactly this reason.
How many inches are in a yard?
A yard is 3 feet, so 36 inches. Fabric and landscaping materials sold by the yard are usually cut to the nearest inch.
What is 1 foot in inches as a fraction?
One foot is 12 inch to the nearest sixteenth, or 12 inch to the nearest sixty-fourth — the marks you will find on a tape measure.
How do you convert feet to inches?
Multiply the number of feet by 12 to get inches.
What is 1 inch in feet?
One inch equals 0.083333333 feet.
When would I convert feet to inches?
This conversion is common when measuring height, screen sizes, travel distances, fabric, and construction dimensions.