Shoe size chart

Four numbering systems appear on shoes sold in the same shop, and only one of them is a measurement of your foot. The tables below set US, UK, EU and centimetre sizes side by side for men's and women's shoes, name the arithmetic each scale runs on, and mark the places where two published charts hand you two different answers for the same foot. This page sits under the size charts hub.

What is a shoe size chart actually converting?

A shoe size labels the last, which is the form the shoe is built around. It does not label your foot. The gap between the two is the allowance the maker adds for toe room, and that allowance is a design decision rather than a constant. This is the first reason a chart can be arithmetically correct and still put you in the wrong box.

Only one column below measures you: the centimetre column, which is foot length. ISO 9407 defines the Mondopoint system, which marks footwear by foot length in millimetres and, used in full, by foot width as well. Japanese sizes work the same way in centimetres. Every other number on the label is an index, not a dimension.

What are men's sizes across US, UK, EU and CM?

Men's US and UK sizes sit one full size apart across the whole range, so US 9 is UK 8. That relationship is stable because both scales run on the same barleycorn step. The EU column is the one that slides, for reasons set out below.

What are women's sizes across US, UK, EU and CM?

Women's US to UK is where charts stop agreeing with each other. Two offsets are in wide circulation, US = UK + 2 and US = UK + 2.5, and the table above uses +2. If you are ordering from a British retailer and you already sit between sizes, treat that as half a size of genuine ambiguity and read the retailer's own chart before you commit.

How do the four scales relate to each other?

1. UK and US run on the barleycorn — one full size is a third of an inch, 0.847 cm, and one half size is a sixth of an inch, 0.423 cm.
2. EU runs on the Paris point — one full size is two thirds of a centimetre, 0.667 cm, measured on the last.
3. CM and JP labels are foot length — the printed number is the measurement itself, in centimetres.
4. Mondopoint is foot length in millimetres — ISO 9407 marks length, and in its full form width, so it needs no conversion at all.

One consequence is arithmetic and unavoidable. A full EU step of 0.667 cm is smaller than a full UK or US step of 0.847 cm. The two scales advance at different rates, so no fixed offset can hold across an entire range. Any chart offering a single clean US-to-EU rule is rounding, and the rounding error has to land somewhere in the middle sizes.

Where do the scales disagree?

That last point explains most of the confusion. Set two charts beside each other at the small end and they agree. Follow them up to the large end and they can be a full half size apart, because one is stepping in barleycorns and the other is stepping in round centimetres. Neither is lying. They are counting in different units.

A printed size is also a commercial decision as well as a technical one, which is the same pressure that moves clothing labels away from their measurements. If that idea is new, vanity sizing covers how it works and why comparing garment measurements beats comparing labels. The same logic holds for shoes: the centimetre is the honest column.

How should you use this chart?

1. Measure both feet first — the method and its error bars are in how to measure your shoe size at home.
2. Read the centimetre column, not the letter — foot length is the only figure here that describes you rather than a factory convention.
3. Fit the larger foot — most people have two different feet, and the shorter one tolerates a roomy shoe better than the longer one tolerates a tight one.
4. Measure late in the day — feet lengthen and swell after hours of standing, so a morning measurement flatters you.
5. Check width before you change length — a shoe that pinches across the ball is often the right length in the wrong width, which shoe width sets out in detail.
6. Treat any converted size as a starting point — the allowance built into the last varies by model, so two shoes marked EU 43 from different makers are not required to match.

Can a photograph tell you your shoe size?

No, and ShirtMath does not pretend otherwise. A photograph alone cannot tell you your shoe size; that needs your known size in a named model, or a measured foot length in centimetres. This page is a reference table, not a tool, and the closing button below goes to the thing that is actually live.

What ShirtMath does today is read a shirt laid flat with a scale card and match its flat measurements against published garment specifications. On shirts, roughly half of scanner readings land within an inch of a tape measure, sleeve opening and bicep are the least reliable readings, and anything the scanner cannot read confidently is left blank rather than guessed. The methodology sets out how that reading works and where it breaks down. The same discipline governs this page: where a number is a convention rather than a measurement, the page says so.

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