How Many Cubic Feet Are in a Cubic Yard?

Garden centers sell soil in bags marked in cubic feet. Landscape yards sell the same soil by the cubic yard. Concrete bags list their yield in cubic feet, while ready-mix trucks deliver in yards. If you have ever stood in a store aisle trying to work out how many bags make up the yard your neighbor recommended, this article is for you. It covers the exact number, why it is that number, and how to convert in both directions without a calculator in your hand.

The Short Answer: 27 Cubic Feet

There are 27 cubic feet in a cubic yard. Each edge of a cubic yard measures one yard, which is 3 feet, and 3 × 3 × 3 = 27. That figure never changes, whether you are measuring mulch, gravel, water or air. It is a fixed definition, not an estimate.

Why it is 27 and not 3 or 9

Most confusion comes from mixing up three different kinds of "yard." A linear yard is a length of 3 feet. A square yard is a flat area 3 feet by 3 feet, or 9 square feet. A cubic yard adds a third dimension, height, which multiplies the count by 3 once more. People who remember that a yard is 3 feet sometimes divide their cubic feet by 3 and end up with an order nine times too large.

How to Convert Cubic Yards to Cubic Feet

Going from yards to feet is a single multiplication. Since each cubic yard holds 27 cubic feet, multiply the number of yards by 27.

Say a supplier delivers 4.5 cubic yards of topsoil. That is 4.5 × 27 = 121.5 cubic feet. This direction is handy when you want to compare a bulk quote against the price of bagged material, since bags are always sold by the cubic foot.

How to Convert Cubic Feet to Cubic Yards

To go the other way, divide by 27. If you prefer multiplying, the same thing is multiplying by 0.037, which is 1 ÷ 27 rounded.

For example, if you have measured a space that holds 160 cubic feet, then 160 ÷ 27 = 5.93 cubic yards. Most suppliers would round that up to 6.

A mental-math trick for dividing by 27

Dividing by 27 in your head is awkward. A close approximation is to divide by 30, then add 10 percent. Using the 160 cubic feet from above: 160 ÷ 30 = 5.33, plus 10 percent is about 5.87. The exact answer is 5.93, so the shortcut lands within about 1 percent. That is accurate enough to sanity-check a quote on the phone, but use the real division before you place an order.

Finding the Cubic Feet of a Space First

Before you can convert anything, you need the volume in cubic feet. Measure length, width and depth in feet and multiply them. If the depth is in inches, divide it by 12 first.

Take a raised bed 6 ft long, 3 ft wide and 12 inches deep. That is 6 × 3 × 1 = 18 cubic feet, which converts to 0.67 cubic yards. Potting mix often comes in 1.5-cubic-foot bags, so you would need 12 of them. Our cubic yard calculation guide covers circles, triangles and other shapes in more depth, and the CY Calculator works as a cubic feet calculator too, showing both units side by side for any shape.

Cubic Feet Per Yard in Everyday Situations

Knowing that a yard is 27 cubic feet becomes really useful once you apply it to the things you actually buy and haul.

Bagged soil, mulch and stone

Divide 27 by the bag size to see how many bags equal one cubic yard:

If the bag count runs past a couple of dozen, bulk delivery is often worth pricing. The Mulch Calculator and Topsoil Calculator show yards and bags together.

Concrete bags

Premixed concrete bags state their yield on the label. Using typical figures, an 80 lb bag makes about 0.6 cubic feet, so a full cubic yard takes 27 ÷ 0.6 = 45 bags. With 60 lb bags (about 0.45 cubic feet) it takes 60, and with 40 lb bags (about 0.3 cubic feet) it takes 90. That is a lot of mixing, which is why larger pours are usually ordered ready-mixed. The Concrete Calculator does this conversion for you, and our slab estimating guide walks through a full patio.

Pickup truck beds

A bed measuring 6.5 ft by 5 ft inside, filled level with 1.5 ft sides, holds about 48.75 cubic feet, or 1.8 cubic yards. For light material such as mulch, that volume is a useful guide to how many trips you will make. For heavy material, weight runs out long before space does, which our cubic yards to tons guide explains.

Digging holes and renting dumpsters

A hole 4 ft square and 3 ft deep removes 48 cubic feet of ground, roughly 1.8 cubic yards. Dug soil loosens up and takes more room in a pile than it did in the ground, so plan for extra space. Dumpsters are sized in cubic yards too: a 10-yard container holds 270 cubic feet and a 20-yard one holds 540.

Converting Several Areas at Once

Real projects rarely involve a single neat rectangle. A typical spring clean-up might cover a front bed, a narrow strip along the fence and a couple of tree rings. The cleanest way to handle this is to work out the cubic feet for each area, add them together, and only then convert to cubic yards.

Suppose the front bed needs 32 cubic feet, the fence strip needs 18 and two tree rings need 4.5 each. The total is 32 + 18 + 4.5 + 4.5 = 59 cubic feet. Divide by 27 and you get 2.19 cubic yards, so you would order 2.25 or 2.5 depending on how your supplier sells.

If you had converted each area to yards first and rounded every one up, you could easily end up with three or more yards on paper. Small rounding errors stack up fast across several areas, so keep everything in cubic feet until the last step. Writing each area on a single list also makes it easy to spot a section you forgot to measure.

Cubic Feet or Cubic Yards: Which Should You Work In?

Both units describe the same thing, so the choice is about convenience. Cubic feet suit small jobs where the numbers stay readable: a planter, a single raised bed or a few bags to top up a border. Saying a window box needs 1.5 cubic feet is clearer than calling it 0.056 cubic yards.

Cubic yards take over once a project gets big enough for a delivery. A patio base of 220 cubic feet is easier to discuss as roughly 8 yards, and that is the unit the supplier will use on the ticket. A good habit is to measure and add up in cubic feet, then switch to yards only when you are ready to talk to a supplier. If you meet gallons, liters or cubic meters on a product sheet, the conversion table in our cubic yard guide covers them.

Common Conversion Mistakes

• Dividing by 3 or 9. Only 27 converts cubic feet to cubic yards. Three is for length and nine is for area.
• Rounding too early. Keep two or three decimals until the final step, then round up to what you can buy.
• Reading the weight instead of the volume. Bag labels show pounds in large print and cubic feet in smaller text. A 40 lb bag is not 40 of anything you can convert to yards, so look for the cubic-foot figure.

Frequently Asked Questions

1 cubic yard equals how many cubic feet?

One cubic yard equals exactly 27 cubic feet, because it measures 3 ft × 3 ft × 3 ft.

How many cubic feet are in half a cubic yard?

Half a cubic yard is 13.5 cubic feet. A quarter yard is 6.75 cubic feet.

How many cubic yards are in 100 cubic feet?

Divide 100 by 27 to get 3.70 cubic yards.

Does the material change the conversion?

No. The 27-to-1 relationship is pure volume, so it applies to soil, sand, concrete, water or anything else. Only the weight per yard changes from one material to another.

How many cubic feet are in 2.5 cubic yards?

Multiply 2.5 by 27 to get 67.5 cubic feet.

Wrapping Up

Remember 27 and you can switch between cubic feet and cubic yards in either direction: multiply by 27 to get feet, divide by 27 to get yards. When you would rather skip the arithmetic, the CY Calculator gives both figures at once, so you can check your own conversions in seconds. For more step-by-step walkthroughs, browse the rest of the blog.