Clothing Size Converter
Convert clothing sizes between US, UK and EU systems for men's, women's and kids' wear, anchored to a real body measurement instead of a label you're hoping translates cleanly.
Wrap a tape measure around the fullest part of the bust, snug but not tight.
Sizes are a close estimate based on standard charts — fit still varies by brand and cut. Click any row to load that size.
How to Convert a Clothing Size
Features
One Body, Six Different Labels
Measure a single chest, bust or waist and you can honestly write down a US size, a UK size, and an EU size that all look nothing alike — and none of them is wrong. Every national sizing system grew out of its own retail history rather than any shared standard, which is exactly why a woman who is a comfortable US 8 sees a 12 on a UK label and something in the high 30s on a German one for the exact same garment. Men's sizing adds its own wrinkle on top: a jacket size and a trouser size aren't even measuring the same part of the body, so the conversion that works for a shirt is the wrong one to apply to jeans. This tool starts from the one number that doesn't change no matter which country's chart you're reading — an actual chest, bust, or waist measurement — and derives every system from that, rather than trying to translate one shaky label into another and compounding whatever inaccuracy was already baked into the original. It's also worth knowing that the US number itself was never locked down the way a unit of length was: the first attempt at a national standard came from a 1939 US Department of Agriculture study that measured 14,698 women and fed the results into a government sizing chart, followed by a revised voluntary standard, CS215-58, in 1958 — which was withdrawn entirely in 1983 and never replaced. Every US size label printed since then is whatever that specific brand decided it should mean, which is the real reason “my usual size” drifts between stores far more than it should for a supposedly fixed number.
Why “EU Size” Is Actually Three Different Numbers
Most size converters treat “EU” as a single column, which is where a lot of conversion mistakes actually start. France, Italy and Germany each calculate women's clothing sizes from bust measurement using their own formula, and the three don't agree: a German 38 is a French 40 and an Italian 44, three completely different-looking labels describing one identical body. A brand headquartered in Milan and a brand headquartered in Berlin can both print “EU” on the tag while quietly meaning different numbers for the same fit, and a shopper who assumes EU sizing is one consistent scale across the whole continent is set up to order the wrong size with total confidence. That's exactly why this converter shows Germany, France and Italy as three separate columns instead of collapsing them into a single misleading figure. Men's EU sizing is comparatively tidier — jacket sizes run about ten above the UK/US chest number, and trouser sizes run about sixteen above the UK/US waist number — but it still splits cleanly along the tops-versus-bottoms line for the same underlying reason: chest and waist simply don't move together in a fixed ratio from one body to the next.
An Online Shopper, a New Parent, and a Best Man Renting a Suit
Someone ordering a coat from a European retailer sees a size 42 and needs to know in seconds whether that's their familiar US 12 before the checkout window closes — a direct measurement-based lookup avoids an expensive round-trip return for a coat that never should have shipped. A parent shopping for school uniforms hits the confusing seam where toddler sizing (2T, 3T, 4T) gives way to plain numbered kids' sizes, and the Growing Room switch on this tool exists specifically for the coats and trousers meant to survive more than one growth spurt, bumping the recommendation up a band without guessing at how many centimetres a child might gain by winter. And a best man renting a suit for a wedding abroad, working from a chest measurement texted over by a tailor back home, needs the local jacket size on the spot rather than a mental approximation that's off by enough to matter on the day. A body measurement itself is just a length, and the Length Converter covers the cm-to-inches side of taking it in the first place, while the companion Shoe Size Converter handles the one accessory that clothing size charts never cover. And someone buying a gift for a relative overseas, working from nothing more than a size mentioned once in a phone call — “I'm usually a UK 14” — needs the US and EU equivalents before browsing a specific retailer's site, since most stores default to whichever system their home market uses regardless of where the shopper placing the order actually is.
Taking a Measurement Worth Trusting
A tape measure pulled too tight adds a false sense of precision to a number that's actually wrong, so a few small habits matter more than the measuring itself. Keep the tape parallel to the floor all the way around — it's easy to let it dip lower at the back without a mirror to check, which quietly shrinks the reading. Measure over the undergarments you'd actually wear with the finished garment, since a bust or chest measurement taken over a heavy jumper will read larger than it should. Breathe normally and take the reading at the end of a natural exhale rather than while holding your stomach in, a habit that's common enough to skew waist measurements smaller than the real number. And when measuring a child, expect the number to be temporary — a growth spurt can move a kid's height measurement, and the size that goes with it, within a single season, which is exactly the gap the Growing Room toggle is built to cover.
Built Around the Number That Doesn't Change
Rather than converting a size label you already own — which only carries forward whatever inaccuracy was baked into that original label — this tool starts from a chest, bust or waist measurement and derives every system from the same cross-checked international charts. Garment-specific toggles keep men's tops separate from trousers and let women choose whether they're measuring for a fitted dress or a pair of jeans, since a single blended number would quietly be wrong for whichever garment it wasn't built around. Quick-select buttons still let you start from a size you already know, setting the equivalent measurement behind the scenes so every other column stays in sync automatically. Underneath the main result, a full clickable chart lists every size in the selected category with the closest match to your current measurement highlighted, and the women's view adds a bust, waist and hip reference row so you can sanity-check a size against actual body measurements rather than trusting the label alone. A short measuring guide walks through taking an accurate reading with nothing more than a tape measure and a few seconds of patience.
Where the Tape Measure Beats the Label
Even a carefully built conversion has a limit this tool can't engineer around: clothing sizing was never standardised the way physical units like length eventually were, so a medium from one brand and a medium from another can fit differently depending on the pattern block each one was cut around. Treat every conversion here, and from any similar tool, as a strong starting estimate rather than a guarantee, and check a specific brand's own published chart directly whenever one is available, especially before a first order from a label you haven't bought from before. Nothing typed into this tool leaves the browser: the calculation runs as plain JavaScript in the tab itself, with no server call and nothing logged, which matters whether you're sizing one gift or restocking an entire family's wardrobe at once. For anything with real money or a fixed event date riding on getting it exactly right — a non-refundable overseas order, a suit that has to fit on a wedding morning — measuring directly against the brand's own size chart remains the safest final check before paying. It's also worth remembering that a body measurement can shift by a genuine half-inch or more over the course of a single day, and stress, travel and time of day all nudge a waist or bust reading slightly — so a measurement taken first thing in the morning and one taken after a large meal can occasionally land on either side of a size boundary. None of that makes the conversion wrong; it just means a borderline result is worth treating as exactly that, borderline, rather than a precise verdict.