How many grams in a cup of flour? (US, metric and UK cups)

How to · Updated 2026-11-10

A level US cup of all-purpose flour weighs about 125 g. Metric and UK cups hold more. See how to convert any amount, and why scooping changes the answer.

One level US cup of all-purpose (plain) flour weighs about 125 g. A 250 ml metric cup holds about 132 g and an old UK cup about 150 g, so it matters which cup your recipe means. The cups to grams converter does the sum for any amount and any of 42 ingredients, and lists the result in every unit at once.

What you need

• The amount in the recipe, such as 2¼ cups or 3 tablespoons.
• Which cup it means. American recipes use the US cup (about 237 ml). Recipes from Australia, Canada and India often use the 250 ml metric cup. Older British books sometimes use a 284 ml cup.
• Which flour. Bread flour is a little heavier per cup than all-purpose; whole wheat is a little lighter.
• A kitchen scale, if you want to weigh the flour rather than measure it.

Step by step

Flour is light and fluffy, so a cup of it weighs far less than a cup of water. To change a volume into a weight you need the flour’s weight per cup:

Grams = number of cups × grams per cup

For any other measure, first find the grams per millilitre (125 g ÷ 236.588 ml = 0.528 g/ml for all-purpose flour), then multiply by the size of your measure in ml.

Grams = volume in ml × 0.528

With the tool:

1. Open cups to grams and choose All-purpose flour in the Ingredient list (it is under Flours and starches). Bread flour and whole wheat flour have their own entries.
2. Type the amount, such as 2.25.
3. Set From to the cup your recipe uses: US cup, metric cup (250 ml) or UK cup (284 ml). Tablespoons and teaspoons are there too.
4. Set To to g. The answer appears in large type, with a sentence under it naming how much one level US cup of that flour weighs.
5. Look at the list below it to see the same amount in every other unit, from ounces to millilitres.
6. To go the other way, from grams back to cups, press ⇄ to swap the two units.

If you are also making the recipe bigger or smaller, the recipe scaler resizes every line at once. Baking it in a different tin? The pan size converter tells you how much batter the new tin needs.

A worked example

A cookie recipe from a US website asks for 2¼ cups of all-purpose flour, and you want to weigh it.

• 2.25 × 125 g = 281.25 g, which the tool shows as 281 g.

Your friend in Canada has the same recipe written with metric cups. Each 250 ml cup of the same flour weighs 250 × 0.528, which is about 132 g, so 2¼ metric cups is about 297 g. That is 16 g more than the US version: not a disaster for cookies, but enough to make a cake a little dry.

A spoon is small, but the same rule applies. One US tablespoon (14.787 ml) of all-purpose flour weighs 14.787 × 0.528, about 7.8 g.

If the recipe used bread flour, 2¼ US cups would weigh 2.25 × 137 = 308 g; with whole wheat flour, 2.25 × 120 = 270 g.

Check your answer

• Quick check: 8 US cups of all-purpose flour make about 1 kg (8 × 125 = 1,000 g). Half a cup is about 62 g; a quarter cup about 31 g.
• Compare with water. A cup of water weighs about 237 g. Flour should come out at roughly half that. If your answer is close to 237 g per cup, you probably picked water or milk by mistake.
• Weigh one cup yourself. Spoon flour into your own cup, level it with a knife and weigh it. If you get 140 g or more, you are packing it down; if you get much under 120 g, you sifted it first. Either way, use your own figure next time.

Questions people ask

Why does scooping give more flour than spooning? Dipping the cup into the bag presses the flour together, so more of it fits. That can add 10 to 20%: 2¼ scooped cups may weigh about 320 g instead of 281 g. For a fair cup, spoon the flour in loosely and sweep the top flat.

Why do bakers prefer grams to cups? A gram is the same in every kitchen, while a cup depends on the cup, the flour and the hand filling it. Weighing also means one bowl on the scale instead of a stack of measuring cups to wash.

Should I sift before or after measuring? Follow the wording. “1 cup sifted flour” means sift first, then measure, which gives a lighter cup. “1 cup flour, sifted” means measure first and sift afterwards, so the weight stays at a normal level cup.