Article — Square Feet Converter
Square feet converter — sqft to m², yd², acre, hectare
The square feet converter multiplies any ft² value by 0.09290304 to get square metres exactly, and provides instant conversion to square yards (÷ 9), square inches (× 144), acres (÷ 43 560), and hectares (÷ 107 639). The factor 0.09290304 is treaty-defined: 1 international foot equals 0.3048 m, and 0.3048² gives the area ratio.
Square feet is the dominant unit for floor area in the United States, the United Kingdom (mixed with m²), Canada, and a few Caribbean and Pacific countries. Real estate listings, building permits, mortgages, insurance, and construction contracts all quote square footage. The rest of the world — about 96% of countries — uses square metres. A square feet converter bridges the two ecosystems.
What is the square feet converter?
A square feet converter takes a value in ft² and outputs the same area expressed in any other unit. Conversions route through m² as the SI base unit. The converter on this page handles seven units: ft², m², yd², in², acre, hectare, and km². Each factor is exact: 0.3048 m per foot, 0.9144 m per yard, 1609.344 m per mile — all 1959 international yard-treaty values.
Square feet to square meters — the exact factor
1 sq ft = 0.09290304 m² exactly. The factor comes from squaring 0.3048: (0.3048)² = 0.09290304. No measurement uncertainty enters because both the foot and the metre are defined by international standards. A 1500 sq ft house equals 139.35 m². A 2500 sq ft house is 232.26 m². For sense-check mental math, the rule of thumb is: divide square feet by 10 for a low estimate, by 11 for a closer one.
1 sq ft = 0.09290304 m² 1 m² = 10.7639 sq ft1 sq yd = 9 sq ft 1 acre = 43 560 sq ft1 hectare = 107 639 sq ft 1 sq mile = 27 878 400 sq ftSquare feet conversion formulas
The general form is target = sq ft × (factor_to_m² ÷ target_factor_to_m²). Listed by direction:
- sq ft → m² = sq ft × 0.09290304
- sq ft → sq yd = sq ft ÷ 9
- sq ft → sq in = sq ft × 144
- sq ft → acre = sq ft ÷ 43 560
- sq ft → hectare = sq ft ÷ 107 639.104
- sq ft → sq km = sq ft ÷ 10 763 910
- m² → sq ft = m² × 10.76391
Square feet in real estate
Price per square foot (PPSF) is the single most-used comparison metric in US real estate. Brokers compute it as listing price ÷ finished square footage. Across the US, median PPSF runs from about $115 (Mississippi) to $900+ (Manhattan core), with a national median around $230 in 2025. The factor lets buyers compare a 1500 sq ft Indiana ranch ($350k, $233/sq ft) directly with a 1500 sq ft Brooklyn apartment ($1.4M, $933/sq ft).
Median US new-home size has grown from 983 sq ft in 1950 to 2299 sq ft in 2015, then drifted down to about 2150 sq ft by 2024. The shrinkage reflects affordability pressure. Australian homes are larger still at 2032 sq ft median, the world's biggest by national median.
Square feet to acres and hectares
1 acre = 43 560 sq ft exactly. The acre originated as the area a yoke of oxen could plough in one day, standardised in medieval England at 40 × 4 rods (4840 sq yd). It remains the unit of choice for US and UK land deeds, agricultural plots, and zoning regulations. 1 hectare = 10 000 m² = 107 639 sq ft = 2.471 acres — slightly larger than 2 acres, often used as a round-ish mental conversion.
For comparison, a US football field including end zones is 360 ft × 160 ft = 57 600 sq ft, or 1.32 acres. A FIFA-regulation football pitch is roughly 7140 m² = 76 855 sq ft = 1.76 acres. A typical suburban lot in the US is 0.2-0.5 acre (8700-21 800 sq ft); in Australia or the UK suburbs, half that.
Measuring square footage correctly (ANSI Z765)
The American National Standards Institute (ANSI Z765-2021) defines the official US method for measuring residential square footage. The rules: measure exterior dimensions for detached homes (or interior + wall thickness for condos); include only finished, heated areas with at least 7-foot ceilings; exclude garages, unfinished basements, open patios, and crawl spaces. Stairs are counted on the floor from which they descend.
Including the garage, half-counting unfinished basements, or measuring exterior dimensions where interior is required can inflate the square footage by 20-30%. Mortgage appraisals catch these errors and can derail a sale. If buying, always re-measure with a laser distance meter rather than trusting the listing.
Common square feet conversion mistakes
The most common conversion error is squaring incorrectly. 1 ft = 0.3048 m, so 1 sq ft = 0.09290304 m² — not 0.3048 m². The linear factor must be squared when converting area.
The second error is acre-hectare confusion. 1 acre ≠ 1 hectare. An acre is 4046.86 m²; a hectare is 10 000 m². The reverse trap also catches people: 1 hectare = 2.471 acres, not 0.404. Sloppy land-deed quoting can be off by a factor of 2.5.
The third error is using the US "survey foot" (slightly different from international foot) for area conversions in old US Geological Survey documents. The two feet differ by 2 ppm — irrelevant at room scale but visible on county-scale surveys. The survey foot was officially deprecated in the US on 1 January 2023; the international foot is now standard for all uses.
Square feet converter quick rules
For mental math: sq ft × 0.093 ≈ m² (precise to 0.1%). sq ft ÷ 10 ≈ m² (low by 7%, good enough for back-of-envelope). m² × 10.76 ≈ sq ft. To go from a US listing to a European one, multiply m² by 10.764 — a 100 m² apartment is 1076 sq ft, almost identical to the "1000 sq ft" mental anchor. Always cross-check that bigger units yield smaller numbers: 1 acre is much bigger than 1 sq ft, so the count of acres for a given area is far smaller than the count of square feet.