Convert metres to feet. Multiply by 3.28084, with reference tables for height, building floors and aviation altitudes.

The formula

feet = metres × 3.280839895

The exactness runs the other way: a foot is defined as exactly 0.3048 metres, so metres to feet means dividing by 0.3048, which does not terminate. 3.280839895 is that quotient rounded, and it is accurate to about one part in ten billion.

To go the other way, multiply by 0.3048. See feet to m.

Quick reference

Metres	Feet	Feet and inches
1 m	3.281 ft	3′ 3⅜″
2 m	6.562 ft	6′ 6¾″
5 m	16.40 ft	16′ 4⅞″
10 m	32.81 ft	32′ 9¾″
50 m	164.0 ft
100 m	328.1 ft
1000 m	3280.8 ft

To turn a decimal foot into inches, multiply the fractional part by 12: 3.281 ft is 3 feet plus 0.281 × 12 = 3.4 inches.

Height

Metres	Feet and inches
1.50 m	4′ 11″
1.60 m	5′ 3″
1.65 m	5′ 5″
1.70 m	5′ 7″
1.75 m	5′ 9″
1.80 m	5′ 11″
1.85 m	6′ 1″
1.90 m	6′ 3″

Buildings and swimming pools

	Metres	Feet
Typical residential floor	2.8 m	9.2 ft
Typical office floor	3.5 m	11.5 ft
Short-course swimming pool	25 m	82.0 ft
Olympic swimming pool	50 m	164.0 ft
Football pitch, long side	105 m	344.5 ft
Taipei 101 (to roof)	449.2 m	1473.7 ft

Aviation still uses feet

Almost every country outside China, Russia and a few neighbours reports aircraft altitude in feet, regardless of what the rest of that country measures in. Flight levels are feet divided by a hundred, so FL350 is 35,000 feet:

Flight level	Feet	Metres
FL100	10,000 ft	3,048 m
FL200	20,000 ft	6,096 m
FL350	35,000 ft	10,668 m
FL410	41,000 ft	12,497 m

Runway lengths and cloud bases are in feet for the same reason. Visibility, confusingly, is usually in metres.

Estimating in your head

Multiply by 3 and add 10%. 1.75 m × 3 is 5.25, plus 0.53 is 5.78 ft — the true answer is 5.74 ft. That is within 0.7%, which for a room measurement is a centimetre or two.

Metres to feet