Shoe size chart: foot length, five scales and width

What is being measured: the foot or the last

This is the first reason charts disagree with each other. A European size is a statement about the LAST, the form the shoe is built on: it is longer than the foot by an allowance for the toes. A Japanese size is a statement about the FOOT itself: 24.5 means the foot is 245 mm, with no allowance included in that number. The two systems measure different objects, so the only way from one to the other is through the length of the foot.

The allowance used here is 10 mm. The shoemaking literature gives 10–15 mm, there is no single agreed figure, and the cautious end was taken. This is the softest constant on the page: a given brand cuts its lasts its own way, and that choice is worth half a size.

Shoe size chart by foot length

On the left is foot length, the one quantity all the systems share. The chart steps by that, not by “one size”: the scales step by different and incommensurable amounts — the Paris point at 6.67 mm, the barleycorn at 8.47 mm, the Japanese step at 5 mm — and a row called “the next size up” would belong to only one of them.

European, Russian, French and Italian shoe sizes are the same number. In clothing those four scales diverge, and out of habit people look for the same gap in shoes, where there is none: all four print the same Paris point on the sole.

Where each column’s number comes from

The UK and US columns are the weakest on the page, and that is worth knowing before you order. The base offset of the English scale is the most commonly published one; the primary source was not read. Together with the approximate allowance, that comes to as much as half a size of disagreement. The metric and Japanese columns need no such caveat: there the conversion follows from the definition of the unit, and the only way to get it wrong is rounding.

Men’s and women’s sizes: one scale or two

UK and US retail runs two series, about a size and a half apart for the same foot length. Here there is one series, men’s by convention, and no split yet. So a woman buying US shoes should check the number in the US column against that store’s own chart rather than take it as it stands.

This does not affect the metric scales: in Europe and in Russia the sole carries the length of the last, the same for any foot.

Width: the number printed on a Russian shoe box

Width is graded by BALL GIRTH — the way around the foot at its widest part, where the toes begin. GOST 3927-88 defines it as a measurement at the 0.68/0.72 section of the last and separates neighboring widths by 6 mm of girth for everyday groups and by 6–8 mm for the rest; the athletic standard GOST 24382-80 prints three widths — narrow, medium and wide — a step of 8 mm apart.

We do not have the last tables from the standard’s appendices, so the number is worked out with a formula that retailers publish and that you can check with a tape: width = 0.25 × ball girth − 0.15 × foot length − a constant, where the constant is 16 for men and 17 for women. Girth and length are in millimeters.

Two reference feet stand here because width depends on two quantities at once: at the same girth, a short foot is wider than a long one. The figures 245 and 265 mm are the middles of the common ranges, not measured averages; your own length goes through the formula rather than being looked up in this table.

Where width is approximate, and this is not a disclaimer for show

The second disagreement is over where narrow ends. One source reads 2–4 as narrow and 5–6 as medium; another reads 2–5 as narrow and calls only 6 normal. Width 5 is therefore marked as disputed in the chart rather than assigned to one side: picking a side would show agreement where there is none.

And a third: this rule turns a foot into a width, not a foot into a particular brand’s size. A manufacturer’s medium width is its own.

Why there are no European F, G, H or American A–EEE letters here

Because there is no international correspondence between foot width and a letter, and that is on the record. ISO tried: the technical report ISO/TR 3836:1978 “System of width grading” has been WITHDRAWN, and the reason is stated plainly — foot size distributions differ from country to country so much that defining a width designation system at the international level is not considered possible.

The current ISO 9407:2019 draws the conclusion: it marks width in MILLIMETERS and introduces no letter classes at all. A shoe labeled “250/95” states two quantities in one unit — foot length and foot width — and reads without any chart. Inventing a letter correspondence here would not be a simplification but an objection to the only body that has worked on the question.

How to find your size

Enter your foot length and see the size in every system at once — in the app; the same place works out width if you give it your ball girth, and draws your foot beside a last cut to match. No account needed. How to measure your foot, your ball girth and the other twenty-six measurements is in the reference. Clothing sizes from bust, waist and hips are on a separate page.