Guide
EU 42 is three different UK sizes, depending on the brand
· · By Redacción HYPEIBIZA
The same European number converts to UK 7.5 at Nike, UK 8 at adidas and UK 8.5 at Converse. If you convert in your head when you buy from a British shop, this is where the mistake happens. At the extremes of the table the gap is a full size.
European sizing feels like a standard because it is a number, and numbers look official. It is not a standard. Each brand publishes its own conversion table, and those tables disagree with each other at the same European size. The gap is too big to be a rounding artefact. It is half a size between the most common brands, and a whole size between the extremes of the group.
We keep every brand's own published table rather than one invented average, because an average would be wrong for all of them. What follows is those tables put side by side at three common sizes.
The same EU number, six different answers
Each cell is what that brand publishes for that European size, not our conversion of it.
| EU | Nike | adidas | New Balance | Converse | Vans | ASICS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 40 | UK 6 / US 7 | UK 6.5 / US 7 | UK 6.5 / US 7 | UK 7 / US 7 | UK 6.5 / US 7.5 | UK 6 / US 7 |
| 42 | UK 7.5 / US 8.5 | UK 8 / US 8.5 | UK 8 / US 8.5 | UK 8.5 / US 8.5 | UK 8 / US 9 | UK 7.5 / US 8.5 |
| 44 | UK 9 / US 10 | UK 9.5 / US 10 | UK 9.5 / US 10 | UK 10 / US 10 | UK 9.5 / US 10.5 | UK 9 / US 10 |
Read the EU 42 row from left to right and the pattern is plain. Nike and ASICS call it UK 7.5. Vans, New Balance and adidas call it UK 8. Converse calls it UK 8.5. Someone who wears a 42 in Sambas and orders UK 8 in Chucks has ordered half a size small. The chart they used was correct all along.
The US column is steadier, until it is not
If the UK column is the trap, the US column looks like the way out. At EU 42 every brand in the table says US 8.5 except Vans, which says US 9. Vans breaks from the other brands in the same way at EU 40 and EU 44. So converting through US numbers is more reliable in general. It is still wrong in the one case you were not expecting.
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View productWomen's and kids' versions are separate charts again
The table above is the men's or unisex chart for each brand. The women's, grade-school and toddler versions of a model have their own charts with their own conversions. So a women's and a men's colourway of one shoe can list the same EU number against different UK numbers. Our size pages keep each chart separate. A product page shows a shop's sizes in the numbering that shop uses.
Why this bites hardest when you compare shops
A British or Czech shop may list its stock in UK numbers while a Spanish or German one lists the same shoe in European ones. Comparing the two shops means converting, and converting with the wrong brand's table gives you a shoe half a size off. It is the single most common way a good price turns into a return. A return usually costs more than the price difference that made the offer attractive.
What a conversion chart cannot tell you
Conversion is a fact about tables. Fit is not. Whether a model runs long, narrow or shallow depends on its last. No chart on this site or any other can answer it. A brand can publish one conversion table and still make two models that feel a size apart. Use these numbers to order the right size of the shoe you already want. Treat fit advice as a separate question with a separate answer.
Each brand's own table, as the brand publishes it:
Two classics that sit a full UK size apart at the same European number. Each page lists the sizes every shop still has, in that shop's own numbering.
