Height converter: feet and inches to cm, and cm to feet.

5'6 in cm is 167.64 cm, or 168 cm to the nearest whole number. To change feet and inches to centimeters, multiply the feet by 12, add the inches and multiply the total by 2.54. For 5'6: 5 × 12 = 60, plus 6 is 66 inches, and 66 × 2.54 = 167.64 cm. To go from centimeters to feet and inches, divide by 2.54 to get inches, then split off the feet. 165 cm ÷ 2.54 = 64.96 in, which is 5 ft 4.96 in, or 5'5" to the nearest inch.

How to use the converter

1. Type in Type a height the way you would say it: 5'8, 5'8", 5 ft 8 in, 5 foot 8, 5-8, 68 in, 173 cm or 1.73 m.
2. Read the big card for centimeters and the cards under it for feet and inches, total inches, meters and decimal feet.
3. The line under the box says how your text was read. A bare number is guessed (3 to 9 is feet, 20 to 99 is inches, 100 to 299 is centimeters) and the guess is shown, so you can fix it with a unit.
4. Or use the boxes in the side column: Feet, Inches or Centimeters. They follow each other.
5. Click a height in the chips or the table to load it. Copy result, Copy link and Start again do what they say.

Your phrasing, answered

People type the same question in several ways. Here are the common ones with the exact result:

Centimeters to feet is the same sum backwards, and the tenth of an inch in the third column is the rounding of the exact inches. The converter shows up to 1/16 inch if you want the tape-measure fraction. For one value in each direction see CM to feet and Feet to cm.

A check you can do in your head

Start from the whole feet and add 2.54 for each extra inch. 4 ft is 121.92 cm, 5 ft is 152.4 cm, 6 ft is 182.88 cm and 7 ft is 213.36 cm. For 5'6": 152.4 + 6 × 2.54 = 152.4 + 15.24 = 167.64 cm. A fraction of an inch works the same way: 5'6 1/2" is 66.5 × 2.54 = 168.91 cm. Set Inches to the nearest to 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16 or 1/32 to see the centimeters turned back into a tape-measure reading.

Why 2.54 is exact

NIST Handbook 44 (2026), Appendix C lists the inch as 2.54 centimeters exactly (checked 19 Oct 2026), and a foot is 12 inches. So 1 foot is exactly 30.48 cm and a height in inches converts with no error of its own. The converter does its sums with exact fractions and rounds once at the last digit, so 167.64 stays 167.64.

Rounding for a form

Forms ask for whole centimeters or whole inches. Choose Whole number in Round cm to, or read the line "Whole number" on the big card. 5'6" gives 168 cm and 5'8" gives 173 cm, because 172.72 rounds up. Round once, at the end. Rounding 165 cm to 5.4 ft first and turning that into feet and inches gives 5 ft 4.8 in, not the 5 ft 4.96 in you started with.

Decimal feet are not feet and inches

5.5 ft is five and a half feet, which is 5'6", not 5'5". The part after the point is a part of a foot, so each tenth is 1.2 inches. 5.10 ft is 155.45 cm, which is 5'1.2", not 5'10". If you typed 5.8 meaning 5'8", the reading line asks whether you meant 5'8 and offers it in one click. The other slip is using 30 cm for a foot: 6 ft is 182.88 cm, and 6 × 30 = 180 is 2.88 cm short.

Taller and shorter heights

The table below the tool runs from 4'0" to 7'0", one inch at a time. Anything outside it still works in the box. A child of 3'6" is 106.68 cm, and 7'6" is 228.6 cm. Your result also feeds the BMI calculator: press Check BMI at this height and the height is filled in.