Kilograms to Pounds

Most of the world weighs in kilograms and the United States weighs in pounds, which is why this conversion comes up constantly for body weight, airline baggage allowances and gym plates.

Two things are worth knowing. A kilogram is 2.20462262 pounds, and doubling then adding ten per cent gets you within half a per cent in your head — 70kg doubled is 140, plus 10% is 154, and the real answer is 154.32.

The pound here is the international avoirdupois pound, defined as exactly 0.45359237 kilograms since 1959. It is the pound meant by every everyday use of the word. The troy pound, still used for precious metals, is a different and lighter unit, and converting a gold price with this would be wrong by about 18%.

The formula

pounds = kilograms × 2.20462262

Kilograms to Pounds table

Kilograms Pounds
1 2.20462262
5 11.0231131
10 22.0462262
20 44.0924524
23 50.7063203
50 110.231131
70 154.323584
80 176.36981
100 220.462262