How Many Grams in a Cup?
One US cup holds 120 grams of flour, 198 grams of granulated sugar, 227 grams of butter or 244 grams of milk. The cup never changes size. What changes is how much of each ingredient fits inside it.
The full table below covers 22 ingredients, each with the product state the figure applies to and its source.
Every figure below is one US customary cup of 236.588 millilitres. The state column matters as much as the number: packed brown sugar and loose brown sugar are not the same measurement.
| Ingredient | Grams in 1 US cup | State assumed | Detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| All-Purpose Flour | 120 g | unsifted, fluffed, spooned and leveled | Open guide |
| Granulated Sugar | 198 g | white granulated sugar, leveled | Open guide |
| Brown Sugar | 213 g | light or dark brown sugar, packed | Open guide |
| Powdered Sugar | 113 g | confectioners' sugar, unsifted and not packed | Open guide |
| Butter | 227 g | solid butter | Open guide |
| Unsweetened Cocoa Powder | 84 g | unsweetened cocoa powder, spooned and leveled | Open guide |
| Old-Fashioned Rolled Oats | 89 g | old-fashioned or quick-cooking oats, uncooked | Open guide |
| Long-Grain White Rice | 185 g | uncooked long-grain white rice | Open guide |
| Cornstarch | 113 g | cornstarch, spooned and levelled | Open guide |
| Chocolate Chips | 170 g | standard chocolate chips | Open guide |
| Whole Almonds | 142 g | whole unblanched almonds | Open guide |
| Raisins | 149 g | loose seedless raisins, not packed | Open guide |
| Table Salt | 288 g | fine table salt, levelled | Open guide |
| Baking Powder | 192 g | double-acting baking powder, levelled | Open guide |
| Water | 237 g | water in one US customary cup | |
| Fresh Milk | 244 g | fresh whole dairy milk | Open guide |
| Yogurt | 227 g | plain full-fat yogurt | Open guide |
| Cream Cheese | 227 g | full-fat block cream cheese, softened | Open guide |
| Vegetable Oil | 198 g | liquid vegetable oil | Open guide |
| Peanut Butter | 256 g | smooth peanut butter at room temperature | Open guide |
| Honey | 340 g | pourable honey at room temperature | Open guide |
| Maple Syrup | 312 g | pure maple syrup at room temperature | Open guide |
Values come from the published dataset. Brands, moisture and measuring technique cause small real-world differences.
Asked as how many grams in one cup, or simply one cup in grams, the question has the same answer: it depends what is in the cup. 1 cup of flour in grams is 120 g, a cup of sugar is 198 g, and a cup of honey is 340 g.
A cup is a container. It measures the space an ingredient occupies, not what that ingredient weighs. Fill the same cup with unsweetened cocoa powder and then with honey and you are holding 84 grams one time and 340 grams the next, a difference of 256 grams from the same measuring cup.
This is why every honest answer to "how many grams in a cup" has to start by asking which ingredient. Any converter that offers you one universal number is either assuming water or guessing.
The ingredient's density is what links the two. Grams divided by grams-per-cup gives you cups; cups multiplied by grams-per-cup gives you grams. That is the whole calculation, and the only part you need to look up is the grams-per-cup figure.
Cup fractions scale directly from the full-cup figure.
| Ingredient | 1 cup | 3/4 cup | 1/2 cup | 1/3 cup | 1/4 cup |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All-Purpose Flour | 120 g | 90 g | 60 g | 40 g | 30 g |
| Granulated Sugar | 198 g | 148 g | 99 g | 66 g | 50 g |
| Brown Sugar | 213 g | 160 g | 106 g | 71 g | 53 g |
| Powdered Sugar | 113 g | 85 g | 56 g | 38 g | 28 g |
| Butter | 227 g | 170 g | 114 g | 76 g | 57 g |
| Unsweetened Cocoa Powder | 84 g | 63 g | 42 g | 28 g | 21 g |
| Old-Fashioned Rolled Oats | 89 g | 67 g | 44 g | 30 g | 22 g |
| Fresh Milk | 244 g | 183 g | 122 g | 81 g | 61 g |
| Water | 237 g | 178 g | 118 g | 79 g | 59 g |
| Honey | 340 g | 255 g | 170 g | 113 g | 85 g |
Half a cup of butter works out to 114 g by arithmetic; one wrapped US stick is labelled 113 g.
Four different cups are in common use, and a recipe rarely says which one it assumes:
| Cup standard | Volume | Where it is used |
|---|---|---|
| US customary cup | 236.588 mL | United States recipes and this site |
| US legal cup | 240 mL | US nutrition labelling |
| Metric cup | 250 mL | Australia, New Zealand, Canada, much of Europe |
| Imperial cup | 284 mL | Older British recipes |
The spread is not trivial. A metric cup of flour holds about 127 grams against 120 grams for a US cup, small once, but half a cup out by the time you have measured six. Everything on this site uses the US customary cup and says so on every page.
How many grams in a cup?
How much is a cup in grams?
How many grams in 1 cup of flour?
How many grams is a cup of sugar?
How many grams is 1 cup of butter?
Is a cup always 250 grams?
Why do converters disagree about how many grams are in a cup?
Per-Ingredient Guides
Each guide carries the full chart, cup fractions, measuring guidance and how the variants differ.