Imperial Fluid Ounces to US Cups (fl oz (UK) to cup)

1 imperial fluid ounce equals 0.1200949926 US cups (rounded).

1 imperial fluid ounce = 0.1200949926 US cups

How to convert imperial fluid ounces to US cups

To convert imperial fluid ounces to US cups, multiply the number of imperial fluid ounces by 0.1200949926. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply US cups by 8.326741846 (rounded).

US cups = imperial fluid ounces × 0.1200949926

Example: 10 imperial fluid ounces = 1.200949926 US cups.

Pints, quarts, gallons and fluid ounces differ between the US and the UK. Units are labeled 'US' or 'imperial' to avoid confusion.

About these units

Imperial Fluid Ounce (fl oz (UK))

Imperial (British)Current unit

Exactly 28.4130625 mL. About 4% smaller than the US fluid ounce.

Imperial fluid ounce comes from the 1824 reform that defined the British gallon as the volume of ten pounds of water. Because a gallon was set at 160 fluid ounces, an ounce of water weighs about one ounce of mass, around 28.35 grams. That neat link between volume and weight was the point of the imperial scheme, and it explains why people long thought of fluid ounces and weight ounces as nearly the same.

Today an imperial fluid ounce is exactly 28.4130625 milliliters, one twentieth of an imperial pint. That is about 4 percent smaller than the US fluid ounce at 29.57 mL, so a US recipe using fluid ounces does not map one-for-one onto a British one. UK trade rules restricted its use in 1995, and it lives on mostly on older labels, in bars and in recipes. Twenty of them fill an imperial pint, which makes the pint the easiest way to picture one.

1 imperial fluid ounce = 0.0284130625 liters (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Fluid ounce; UK Weights and Measures Act 1985, Schedule 1

US Cup (cup)

US customaryCurrent unit

One sixteenth of a US gallon, 236.588 mL (8 US fluid ounces). The standard US recipe cup.

Cups began as household drinking vessels, not scientific units, which is why they remain the messiest measures in the kitchen. The US customary cup was defined by slicing up the gallon: half a pint, or eight US fluid ounces, about 236.6 milliliters. Unlike the larger units, nobody ever fixed it to a physical vessel, so it exists only as a fraction of the gallon.

The customary cup is not the only American cup. For nutrition labels, US regulation defines a cup as exactly 240 milliliters, a rounder figure that sits slightly above the customary size. Packaged foods therefore list a serving in the legal cup while a measuring cup from the hardware store follows the customary definition. The gap is 3.4 milliliters, which hardly matters for soup but can matter in baking. Cup measures also hide the weight of dry ingredients, since a cup of sifted flour and a cup of packed flour differ substantially, which is why much of the world prefers grams.

1 US cup = 0.2365882365 liters (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Cup (unit); NIST SP 811, Appendix B.8: conversion factors for volume; 21 CFR 101.9: nutrition labeling household measures

Related conversions

See all volume units.