Cubic feet to cubic yards
Divide by 27. Exact, by definition.
Material estimate
Enter a figure in cubic feet.
You need to buy
Use this figure
Worth knowing
What this assumes
Twenty-seven, not nine
A yard is three feet. A cubic yard is three feet in every direction, so it is 3 × 3 × 3 = 27 cubic feet. That is a definition, not a measurement — it is exact, it has no tolerance, and it does not depend on what is in it.
Nine is the square yard, and reaching for it here is the commonest error in this arithmetic. It gives an answer three times too large. If a volume looks out by a factor of three, check which of the two you used.
Cubic feet to cubic yards
| Cubic feet | Cubic yards | Bags at 2 ft³ | Order to the half yard |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 ft³ | 0.037 yd³ | 0.5 | 0.5 yd³ |
| 27 ft³ | 1 yd³ | 13.5 | 1 yd³ |
| 50 ft³ | 1.852 yd³ | 25 | 2 yd³ |
| 100 ft³ | 3.704 yd³ | 50 | 4 yd³ |
| 200 ft³ | 7.407 yd³ | 100 | 7.5 yd³ |
| 500 ft³ | 18.519 yd³ | 250 | 19 yd³ |
| 1,000 ft³ | 37.037 yd³ | 500 | 37.5 yd³ |
Exact conversions. The last column is what most suppliers will actually put on a truck — almost nobody sells a partial yard below a half.
Where this number goes next
A volume is not a weight. To turn cubic yards into tons you need a density for the specific material, and the cubic yards to tons calculator publishes twenty-seven of them with sources. If you are starting from a shape rather than a figure, the cubic yard calculator works the volume out of a length, a width and a depth — including the division by twelve that hand calculations skip. For a specific material there is usually a better page again: mulch, gravel, dirt and concrete all carry the allowances a bare conversion has none of.
Common questions
How many cubic feet are in a cubic yard?
Twenty-seven. A yard is three feet, so a cubic yard is three feet in every direction — 3 × 3 × 3 = 27. It is a definition rather than a measured quantity, so it is exact and it never changes.
How do I convert cubic feet to cubic yards?
Divide by 27. A hundred cubic feet is 3.704 cubic yards. Multiplying by 0.037 gets you the same answer, but dividing is easier to check in your head — and the check that matters is that the yardage should always be a much smaller number than the footage.
Why do people use nine by mistake?
Because nine is the square yard — 3 × 3 — and it is the conversion you need for area. Using it for volume gives an answer three times too large, and it is the single commonest error in this arithmetic. If a figure looks like it is out by a factor of three, this is almost always why.
Why is bulk material sold by the cubic yard?
Because it is roughly a truck-sized unit for the things that come loose: soil, gravel, mulch, sand, concrete. A cubic yard is about what fits in a small pickup bed at legal weight for lighter materials, and it divides sensibly into the volumes of real jobs. Bagged material is sold in cubic feet, which is why the two are so hard to compare in your head — a 2 cubic foot bag is one thirteen-and-a-halfth of a yard.
How many bags is a cubic yard?
Thirteen and a half, if the bags hold 2 cubic feet — which is the common size for mulch and soil. At 1.5 cubic feet a bag it is eighteen. That is usually the moment bulk starts to make sense: once you are past about a yard, the lifting and the price both argue for a delivery.
Does this tell me what it weighs?
No, and nothing about a volume can. A cubic yard of screened topsoil is under a ton and a cubic yard of traprock in the ground is over two and a half. Turning a volume into a weight needs a published density for the specific material, which the cubic yards to tons calculator has for twenty-seven of them.