Inches to Meters Converter

How many meters are in an inch?

One inch is 0.0254 meters. The number is exact: the inch is defined as 25.4 millimeters, and a millimeter is one thousandth of a meter. Converting between the two is therefore a single multiplication with no uncertainty in the factor.

meters = inches × 0.0254To reverse it, divide meters by 0.0254.

A useful landmark is that a meter is a little longer than 39 inches. Exactly, one meter is 39.3700787... inches, which is why the reverse conversion produces long decimals while this direction stays clean.

When inches have to become meters

Inches turn up in product dimensions, hardware and screen sizes, but plans, shipping forms and engineering calculations in most countries are written in meters. Typical jobs include converting the height of a door or ceiling from a US listing, checking whether a piece of furniture fits a room drawn in meters, or filling in a customs form that asks for metric dimensions.

Because a meter is a large unit, the result is usually a decimal below 3. If you are working with small objects, centimeters or millimeters read more naturally; see the inches to centimeters converter or the inches to millimeters converter.

How to convert inches to meters

1. Type the length in inches into the first field.
2. The second field fills in the length in meters straight away.
3. Round the result to the precision your task needs, but keep the full number if you will use it in further calculations.

Example 1. A door that is 80 inches tall: 80 × 0.0254 = 2.032 m.

Example 2. A ceiling of 108 inches (9 ft): 108 × 0.0254 = 2.7432 m.

Example 3. A flat-screen television 65 inches across its diagonal: 65 × 0.0254 = 1.651 m.

The display holds four decimals, so a very short length such as 0.001 inch (0.0000254 m) is shown as 0. Use the inches to millimeters converter for fine measurements.

Inches to meters conversion table

Tips for accurate results

• Check the magnitude. An everyday object measured in inches will almost always come out under a few meters. A result like 25 or 250 usually means a decimal slipped.
• Do not substitute 0.025. The factor is 0.0254, and shaving off the 4 introduces an error of about 1.6%.
• Convert feet separately. A length such as 6 ft 3 in is 75 inches, so the answer is 75 × 0.0254 = 1.905 m.

Going in the other direction, the meters to inches converter handles the division by 0.0254 for you.