Pick up a shoe box in Seoul and you will see a number like 250 printed on the end of it. That is not a style code, it is not a European size, and it is not a number anyone made up to be confusing. It is a foot length in millimetres. Twenty-five centimetres. Once you know that, the whole thing stops being a conversion problem and becomes a measuring problem, and measuring is something you can do at home with a wall and a pencil.
Use the tool below if you already know your size at home and just want the number to say out loud in a shop. Read on if you want to know why your usual size sometimes fits and sometimes does not.
What is my shoe size in Korea?
Korea uses the Mondopoint system, the same one used for ski boots and by several militaries. The size is a foot length in millimetres and it moves in steps of five. A women’s US 8.5 is a 250. A men’s US 9 is a 270. A UK 6 is a 250 as well, because UK women’s and US women’s sizing differ by two and a half sizes and the millimetre number does not care about either of them.
The advantage is that there is only one scale. Korean shops do not run a men’s ladder and a women’s ladder with different numbers on them. A 260 is a 260 whether it is a running shoe, a loafer or a hiking boot, and whether the box has a man or a woman on it. What changes between a men’s 260 and a women’s 260 is the shape of the last — the width, the depth at the instep, the volume around the heel — not the number.
The disadvantage is that half sizes do not exist. Western brands give you 8, 8.5, 9. Korea gives you 250, 255, 260, and the gap between two Korean sizes is roughly the same as one Western half size. If you sit exactly between two numbers, the standard advice from Korean shop staff is to take the bigger one, because a shoe that is five millimetres long can be fixed with an insole and a shoe that is five millimetres short cannot be fixed at all.
Measure your foot — the size is the measurement
Conversion charts, including ours, are approximations of other people’s approximations. Your own foot is not. Measuring takes two minutes and it is the single most useful thing you can do before shopping for shoes in Korea, because here the number on the box and the number on your ruler are the same kind of number.
Stand on a sheet of paper with your heel against a wall, in the socks you would actually wear with the shoes. Mark the paper at the tip of your longest toe — for a lot of people that is the second toe, not the big one. Measure from the wall edge of the paper to the mark. Do both feet in the late afternoon, when feet are at their largest, and use the bigger number.
Now read it in millimetres. A foot of 25.0 cm is a 250. A foot of 26.5 cm is a 265. If you land between two sizes — say 25.3 cm — go up to the next five, so 255. Go up as well if you are buying boots, if you wear thick socks in winter, or if you simply like room at the front; one 5 mm step is the normal amount of extra, and two is usually too much because the heel starts to slip.
Write the number down and keep it in your phone. Korean shop staff will ask you for it directly — the question is 몇 미리 신으세요? (myeot miri sineuseyo?), “how many millimetres do you wear?” — and answering with a number rather than a country’s size code makes the entire transaction take about thirty seconds.
What 230, 250 and 280 come out as
These three come up constantly, so here they are in plain terms.
230 is a foot of 23.0 cm. That is a women’s US 6.5, a UK 4, an EU 36. It is a common small women’s size in Korea and every shop stocks it.
250 is a foot of 25.0 cm — women’s US 8.5, UK 6, EU 39. This is roughly the median women’s size in Korea and the one most likely to be sold out in a popular style. It also appears in men’s ranges, where it is a US 7.
280 is a foot of 28.0 cm — men’s US 10, UK 9, EU 43 or 44 depending on the brand. This is a normal large men’s size and widely stocked, though the selection thins noticeably once you pass it.
Notice that the millimetre number is simply the centimetre measurement with the decimal point moved. 23.0 cm is 230, 28.0 cm is 280. Once you see that, you can do the whole conversion in your head and never need a chart again — which is the opposite of every other sizing system on this site.
Korean shoe size to EU and UK
UK sizing is the easier of the two. It steps in roughly one third of an inch, about 8.5 mm, so one UK size is a little less than two Korean steps. A UK 6 is a 250, a UK 8 is a 270, a UK 9 is a 280. If you know your UK size and want a fast estimate, multiply by ten and add about one hundred and ninety, then round to the nearest five.
EU sizing is the one that causes arguments. The EU scale is built on Paris points — two thirds of a centimetre per step — so it advances about 1.5 sizes for every centimetre of foot, while Korea advances in even 5 mm steps. The two ladders drift against each other, which is why half sizes appear in our EU column and why no two charts on the internet fully agree.
It gets worse: the same foot length is commonly labelled about a size higher on men’s lines than on women’s lines. Published charts from major retailers put a 250 at EU 39 in a women’s range and EU 40 in a men’s range, and both are defensible. Our EU column is calculated from the Paris-point definition and anchored at the two points where the sources do agree — a 250 is an EU 39 and a 270 is an EU 42. Treat the rest as give or take one size, and let the millimetres be the thing you actually trust.
If you are converting clothing rather than footwear, the ladders are completely different and the same numbers mean different things — an EU 42 is a 66 in Korean women’s clothing but a 270 in shoes. Our Korean size converter covers tops, bottoms, bras and underwear for both men and women, and the Korean ring size converter handles rings, where the number is your finger circumference in millimetres minus 43.
Width is the part that catches people out
Korean shoppers talk about 발볼 (balbol), the width across the ball of the foot, and many domestic brands print a width grade next to the length: E, 2E, 3E, 4E, with each step wider than the last. Domestic Korean lasts tend to run relatively wide and generous through the forefoot, which is good news if your usual complaint is that shoes pinch.
Imported European brands sold in Korea are the opposite. They are built on European lasts and often feel narrow to a foot that is used to American or Korean shoes, even when the length is right. If a shoe is the correct millimetre length but feels tight across the widest part, going up one 5 mm step is the usual fix, and it is a better fix than sizing up two steps and losing heel hold.
This is also the reason Korean online sizing reviews are worth reading even in machine translation. The phrases you are looking for are 정사이즈 (jeong-saijeu, true to size), 반 사이즈 크게 (ban saijeu keuge, half a size up, meaning one 5 mm step) and 발볼 좁아요 (balbol jobayo, narrow forefoot).
Where the sizes run out
Korean shops stock a narrower range than most Western markets, and it is worth knowing where the edges are before you spend an afternoon walking between stores.
For women, mainstream ranges usually run from 220 to 250, with 255 and 260 available in athletic brands and larger chains but scarce in fashion footwear. Above 260 you are into specialist shops or online. For men, ranges usually run from 250 to 280, with 285 and 290 common in sportswear and thinning quickly above that. 300 exists but you will be ordering it rather than picking it off a shelf.
The practical answer if you are outside those ranges is the same one Koreans use: buy online from a domestic retailer that lists the millimetre length, or shop the athletic brands, which carry the widest size runs by a large margin. Department store sports floors are the highest-yield single stop. The same squeeze applies to clothing, which we wrote about in why you are suddenly an XXL in Korea.
Buying shoes in Korea without a fitting room
Most shops will let you try shoes on, but small boutiques and market stalls sometimes will not, and online is online. A few habits make that survivable.
Bring your millimetre number, not your home size. Bring the socks. Check whether the listing gives 사이즈 (saijeu, the label size) or 실측 (silcheuk, the measured length), because a shoe labelled 250 can measure anything from 248 to 254 depending on the brand. When a listing gives 실측, trust it over the label.
If you would rather browse than convert, Seongsu-dong is the old shoemaking quarter and still the densest concentration of footwear in Seoul — we covered what the district has turned into separately.
Finally, keep the receipt and the box. Exchange policies in Korea are generally reasonable for unworn shoes within a week or two, and exchanging one size step is a routine request rather than an argument — as long as the soles are clean.
Working out what all this costs is a separate question, and prices in a Korean shop are quoted in won with no tax added at the till. Our Korean won converter turns those numbers into something you can judge at a glance.
Renting rather than shopping? Korean listings measure floor space in pyeong, and the number on the listing is not the number on the contract. Our pyeong to square metres converter does both, and explains the gap.