How to Measure Foot Size at Home and Pick a Shoe Size

The shoes arrive, you lace them up, and your longest toe is touching the front. You ordered the size you always order, which was measured for you in a shop years and several pairs ago. Below is the five-minute paper method, a chart that turns the number into a US, UK and EU size, and the two checks, width and time of day, that decide whether the pair stays.

Foot length to shoe size

Measure first, then find your longer foot in this table. The size columns are Nike’s women’s chart, a brand chart that prints foot length in inches next to each size.

Foot length	US women’s	UK	EU
8 11/16 in (22.1 cm)	5	2.5	35.5
9 in (22.9 cm)	6	3.5	36.5
9 5/16 in (23.7 cm)	7	4.5	38
9 11/16 in (24.6 cm)	8	5.5	39
10 in (25.4 cm)	9	6.5	40.5
10 5/16 in (26.2 cm)	10	7.5	42
10 11/16 in (27.1 cm)	11	8.5	43
11 in (27.9 cm)	12	9.5	44.5
11 5/16 in (28.7 cm)	13	10.5	45.5

Between two rows, take the larger size; that is Nike’s own instruction and it is the right direction for a foot that will swell by evening. A generic conversion table puts a US 8 at 9⅔ inches and a 10 at 10⅓, within a twentieth of an inch of Nike’s two rows.

The paper method

You need a sheet of paper, a hard floor, a pencil and a ruler, and ideally a second person.

1. Tape the paper to a hard floor, against a wall if you can. Carpet compresses and adds length.
2. Stand on it in the socks you will wear with the shoes, feet shoulder-width apart, weight even on both. Brannock’s instruction is to stand with equal weight on both feet so that the foot “has elongated and spread to its maximum size”; sitting gives you a shorter, narrower foot than the one that will be in the shoe.
3. Have someone mark the tip of your longest toe and the back of your heel, with the pencil held straight up. The longest toe is not always the big toe, which is why Brannock’s reading instruction says to look down over “the longest toe (not necessarily the first toe)”.
4. Mark the widest points on each side of the ball of the foot while you are there.
5. Step off and measure heel mark to toe mark, in inches and centimetres.
6. Repeat with the other foot on a fresh sheet and keep the longer measurement. It is common for the two to differ.

Do it at the end of the day for everyday shoes. The Brannock fitting tips put it plainly: “For daily footwear go when you’ve been on your feet all day your feet have expanded.”

Why the number on the box is not your foot

Your foot length is not your shoe size, and the gap is deliberate. Shoes are built over a last that runs longer than the foot by half to two-thirds of an inch, and the size charts already include that room. Nike’s chart makes the point in its own footnote: the centimetre figure printed on the box “is different than Foot Length (cm)”. A US women’s 8 is a 24.6 cm foot and a 25 cm box.

So do not read a 25 cm foot off a ruler and buy a 25 cm shoe. Find the foot length in the chart and take the size in that row.

Width is the check people skip

Length gets the attention; width is the check that decides whether the front of the shoe feels right. Two facts to hold onto:

• Width is measured against length. Brannock’s device reads the width letter at the size you have just measured, so a wide foot means wide for that length, and “I take a wide” does not carry across sizes.
• The words are not standard. Brannock’s own tips say that terms such as narrow, wide and extra wide “are not standardized” and that manufacturers use them at their discretion. Nike quantifies its own: a wide has about a quarter inch more girth in the toe box than regular, an extra wide about half an inch.

If your ball-of-foot marks are wide for the size you landed on, look for a brand that publishes its widths and start with the wide. The named models with a real wide last are in best walking sneakers for wide feet.

If you want the shop measurement at home

The device you stand on in a shoe shop is sold to the public. The Women’s Brannock Device lists at $89.65 in September 2026, covers sizes 3 to 13 and widths 4A to 2E, and reads length, width at that size, and the one thing the paper method cannot: arch length from heel to the ball joint. The arch reading matters because a shoe flexes at its own ball point; Brannock’s rule is to compare arch length with heel-to-toe length and generally fit to the larger of the two. Worth it if you buy shoes for a household, or if a pair keeps measuring right and feeling wrong across the front.

Before you order

• Use the brand’s chart, not a generic one. Brands disagree even on the UK conversion: Nike prints a US women’s 8 as a UK 5.5, Seasalt prints a US 8 as a UK 6. Generic online tables often get the zero points wrong, which is where the half-size disagreements come from.
• Measure again after a weight change or a few years. Brannock’s tips say foot size changes with age and weight, and the size from school is probably wrong.
• Do not count on stretch. Brannock again: “Shoes don’t stretch. If they don’t feel right at the time of purchase they probably will never feel right.”
• Try them indoors on carpet and read the returns page first.

The clothing side of the UK-to-US label problem, which runs on a different offset from shoes, is in uk size 6 to us. The other measuring guides are in size guides.

Where these numbers come from

The foot length, US, UK and EU columns are Nike’s women’s footwear chart, read on 19 September 2026, with the inches converted to centimetres by us; the measuring rules and quotations are from Brannock’s published fitting tips. The device price is Brannock’s own list price on the same date.

Frequently asked questions

Should I measure one foot or both?

Both, then use the longer one. Brannock's fitting instructions say to measure both feet and fit the larger foot because it is common to have feet of different sizes, and Nike's chart tells you to apply the longer measurement and size up if it falls between sizes.

What time of day should I measure my feet?

The end of the day, for everyday shoes. Brannock's guidance is to have footwear fitted at a similar time to when you will wear it, because feet expand after you have been on them all day. A morning measurement can come out small.

Why is my foot length not my shoe size?

Because a shoe is built over a last that runs about half to two-thirds of an inch longer than the foot, and the size charts already include that room. A 9 11/16-inch foot is a US women's 8 on Nike's chart, and the box for that shoe says 25 cm even though the foot is 24.6.