Pounds to Ounces Converter

Sixteen ounces to a pound, and the rule never changes

Multiply pounds by 16 and the answer is ounces. That is the whole conversion for the everyday pound, the avoirdupois pound used for food, parcels and body weight. The ratio comes from the definitions themselves: NIST Handbook 44, Appendix C (2026 edition) lists a pound as 7000 grains and an ounce as 437.5 grains, and 7000 / 437.5 = 16 exactly.

The 1959 international agreement fixed the pound at 0.45359237 kg, which makes the ounce exactly 28.349523125 g. Two multiplications cover most kitchen work: 1.5 x 16 = 24 oz and 3.5 x 16 = 56 oz. Halves and quarters come out clean as well, with a half pound at 8 oz and three quarters at 12 oz.

The reverse direction is one division, ounces / 16, which is why a 40 oz package is 2 lb 8 oz and a 28 oz one is 1 lb 12 oz. Both directions stay exact because the ratio is 16 to 1 rather than 16.0001 to 1, so no rounding enters until the answer is written down.

Portions: ounces per serving, pounds to buy

US recipes and nutrition charts portion meat, cheese and fish in ounces. Start with the portion and the number of people, and the total to buy falls out in two steps: multiply to get total ounces, then divide by 16 for pounds.

A cooked serving of meat is 3 oz on the USDA nutrition poster for poultry, which prints that serving as 3 oz (84 g). Eight people at that size need 24 oz, which is 1.5 lb, and a 6 oz steak for six people needs 36 oz, or 2.25 lb. Doubling a recipe doubles both columns: the 2.25 lb roast becomes 4.5 lb, and 36 oz becomes 72 oz. The ounce figure is the easier one to double in your head, which is why cooks who scale recipes keep the total in ounces and convert at the end.

The troy pound holds 12 ounces, not 16

Gold, silver and platinum are weighed in troy ounces, and troy weight has its own pound. One troy ounce is exactly 31.1034768 g, and a troy pound is 12 troy ounces. NIST Handbook 44 prints the troy pound as 5760 grains, which is 373.241 721 6 g, and it gives the same troy pound as 0.823 avoirdupois pounds.

The subtraction is the part to remember: 453.59237 - 373.2417216 = 80.35 g, so a troy pound is about 17.7 percent lighter than the pound on a food scale. An ingot labeled 100 troy ounces weighs 3110.35 g, or about 6.86 lb in avoirdupois terms. Mixing the two systems on one invoice is how a pound of silver ends up 80 g short of what the buyer expected.

The grain count explains the odd split. An avoirdupois pound is 7000 grains and an avoirdupois ounce is 437.5 of them, while a troy ounce is 480 grains. Precious metal dealers kept the 480 grain ounce because it was the older standard, and the 12 ounce pound came with it.

Baby weight, body weight and the ounce count

A newborn is weighed in pounds and ounces, and that pair is what the first pediatric visits record. Converting the pair to ounces makes growth simple to add: 6 lb 8 oz is 104 oz, and 7 lb 6 oz is 118 oz, a gain of 14 oz.

Adult weights follow the same multiplication: 150 lb is 2400 oz. The CDC growth charts plot infants in kilograms with pounds as the secondary scale, and the CDC's BMI training page notes that 16 ounces make a pound when a weight arrives in ounces, so a chart in kg and a scale in lb and oz are reading the same measurement. This page does the arithmetic only; questions about growth belong with a clinician.

Postal scales and parcel weights

Shipping labels ask for pounds and ounces in separate boxes, and counter scales print the pair. Converting a declaration to total ounces once keeps the two boxes in agreement.

Take 3 lb 2 oz: 3 x 16 = 48, then 48 + 2 = 50 oz, which is 1417.48 g. A 1 lb 12 oz parcel is 28 oz, and 28 / 16 = 1.75 lb if a form wants the decimal instead. Commercial scales used at a postage counter are regulated, and NIST Handbook 44 sets the tolerances they must meet, so the ounce printed on the receipt is the ounce this page uses.

Decimal pounds on a digital scale

A digital scale shows 4.3 lb, and a form or a recipe wants pounds and ounces. The whole number stays as pounds, and the decimal part times 16 gives the ounces: 0.3 x 16 = 4.8, so 4.3 lb reads 4 lb 4.8 oz.

The usual mistake is reading the digits after the point as ounces, so 2.05 lb becomes 2 lb 5 oz. That reading is 37 oz against a true 32.8 oz, a 4.2 oz gap that can push a parcel into the next rate step. The safe habit is to multiply the decimal by 16 and keep the fraction of an ounce, or to type the decimal into the converter and read the split it prints.

When the recipe is already in grams

Plenty of cookbooks write grams, and the pound and ounce reading is what a US scale shows. Divide grams by 28.349523125 for ounces, then split at 16 for pounds. A 400 g can of tomatoes is 400 / 28.349523125 = 14.11 oz, which reads as just under 0.9 lb. A 250 g block of cheese is 8.82 oz, a bit over half a pound.

Round the ounce figure to one decimal for the stove and to a whole ounce for a parcel. At 14.11 oz the gap between the exact value and the rounded one is 0.0003 oz, far below what a scale can read, so the rounding never changes what the scale says. The same three factors cover every case: 28.349523125 g per ounce, 16 ounces per pound, and 12 troy ounces per troy pound when the goods are metal.

How to use this converter

Enter a weight in pounds and the tool returns five rows: total ounces, the pounds and ounces split a scale would show, grams, kilograms, and a steps line with both multiplications. A selector under the input changes the pound to troy weight, where a pound holds 12 ounces of 31.1034768 g each.

Enter 1.5 for 24 oz and a split of 1 lb 8 oz, then 4.3 for 68.8 oz and a split of 4 lb 4.8 oz. The arithmetic happens in your browser, and no weight you enter is uploaded or stored anywhere. The fixed numbers behind the rows are 16 oz = 1 lb, 1 lb = 453.59237 g and 1 troy lb = 373.2417216 g, all printed in NIST Handbook 44.