Desk height calculator

Check the number against your own body

These figures come from population averages relating limb length to overall height. Leg length varies between two people of the same height, so the calculator gets you close and your body settles it. Two tests, thirty seconds:

1. The elbow test. Sit upright with your feet flat and let your arms hang. Bring your forearms up to horizontal. Your fingers should rest on the desk surface without your shoulders lifting or your wrists bending upward. If your shoulders rise, the desk is too high.
2. The two-finger test. Sitting back in the chair, slide two fingers into the gap between the front edge of the seat and the back of your knee. Two to three fingers is right. No gap means the seat is too deep for you, which is the most common fit failure and the one nobody identifies.

Why this one does not end in a product page

Nearly every other desk height calculator is run by a company that sells desks. That does not make their arithmetic wrong — the ratios are public — but it does mean the answer always arrives next to something to buy, and that the "solution" is never "keep the desk you have and raise your chair."

To be straight about our own incentives: this page sells nothing and has no affiliate links on it, but elsewhere on the site some guides do, and we earn a commission if you buy through them. What that has not bought is the advice here. If your desk is too tall, the first thing this page tells you is to adjust the chair you already own, because that fixes the same geometry for the price of a box under your feet — and there is no commission on a box.

The standard desk fits almost nobody

Mass-produced desks are built at roughly 29 inches (73.5 cm), a height that suits someone about six feet tall. Most people are not. If the calculator gave you a number well below your actual desk, that gap is doing real damage: to reach a desk that is too high you raise your shoulders, and held shoulder elevation is one of the most reliable ways to produce neck and upper-back pain at a desk.

The fix is not necessarily a new desk. Raise the chair instead and support your feet — it corrects the same geometry from the top down, and costs a fraction of what a height-adjustable desk does.

Questions people ask

What height should my desk be if I am 5 ft 5 in?

About 26 inches (65 cm) for seated work, with the chair seat at roughly 16 inches (41 cm). A standing desk should be about 40 inches (102 cm). The standard 29-inch desk is more than three inches too tall for you, which is why your shoulders rise when you type.

Why is my new desk still uncomfortable at the standard height?

Because there is no standard body. Mass-produced desks are around 29 inches (73.5 cm), which suits someone about 6 ft 0 in. Anyone shorter has to raise their chair to reach it, and once the chair goes up the feet come off the floor.

What if my desk height cannot be changed?

Fit the chair to the desk, not to the floor. Raise the chair until your forearms are level with the desk surface, then support your feet on a footrest so your thighs stay level. Correcting the desk from the top down like this works as well as a height-adjustable desk for far less money.

How high should my monitor be?

The top of the screen should sit at or just below eye level when you are seated upright, which for most people means raising it several inches above a bare desk. Look slightly down at the screen, never up.

Are these numbers exact?

No, and no calculator can be. They come from population averages relating limb length to overall height, and leg length varies between people of the same height. Treat the numbers as a starting point, then check them against your own body with the elbow and two-finger tests.

Where to go next

• The standing desk height calculator — both presets for a desk that moves, and whether the one you are looking at goes high enough for you.
• Your desk height is probably wrong — what to do about it, including when the desk cannot move.
• Your monitor is too low — the screen height number above, and how to reach it without buying anything.
• Does your chair actually fit you? — three tests to run before you consider replacing it.