Floor Rug Sizes in Australia: The Complete cm Guide
If you have shopped for a floor rug in Australia, you already know the numbers: 120 × 170, 160 × 230, 200 × 290, 240 × 330, and an 80 × 300 runner for the hallway. Those five sizes cover almost every rug sold here, and every local retailer lists them in centimetres.
Then you find a rug you love from overseas and it is described as a 5 × 7. Now what?
This guide converts the imperial sizes properly, tells you which Australian standard each one is closest to, and — more usefully — walks room by room through the size you actually need. We make rugs to imperial dimensions, so we have had to think about this carefully, and we would rather give you the real numbers than round them up.
The conversion table
Round numbers in feet are not round numbers in centimetres. Here is the honest arithmetic, alongside the Australian size sitting nearest to it.
| Imperial | Actual cm | Nearest AU standard | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 × 3 ft | 61 × 91 cm | 50x80cm mat | A little larger than a doormat |
| 2 × 6 ft runner | 61 × 183 cm | 80x300cm runner | 19 cm narrower, 117 cm shorter |
| 3 × 5 ft | 91 × 152 cm | 80x150cm | Near enough identical |
| 4 × 6 ft | 122 × 183 cm | 120x170cm | 13 cm longer |
| 5 × 7 ft | 152 × 213 cm | 160x230cm | 8 cm narrower, 17 cm shorter |
| 6 × 9 ft | 183 × 274 cm | 200x290cm | 17 cm narrower, 16 cm shorter |
| 8 × 10 ft | 244 × 305 cm | 240x330cm | Same width, 25 cm shorter |
| 9 × 12 ft | 274 × 366 cm | 280x380cm | 6 cm narrower, 14 cm shorter |
Two things worth noticing. First, an imperial rug is almost always slightly smaller than the Australian size it resembles, not larger — so if you are replacing a 160x230cm rug, a 5 × 7 will leave a little more floor showing. Second, the runner is the one real gap. Australian hallway runners are 80 cm wide and 300 cm long because Australian hallways are long. A 61 × 183 cm runner is a different object: it belongs in front of a kitchen bench, in a laundry, or in a short entry, not down a corridor.
Lounge room
The most common sizing mistake in an Australian lounge room is a rug that is too small, so it floats in the middle of the floorboards with a moat of timber around it and the lounge suite marooned off the edge.
The rule that fixes it: the rug should be at least as wide as your lounge, and the front legs of every seat should sit on the rug. That is the minimum. Better still is a rug large enough that the whole lounge suite and the coffee table sit on it.
- Apartment or small living area — 152 × 213 cm (5 × 7 ft) will anchor a two-seater and one armchair.
- Standard lounge room — 183 × 274 cm (6 × 9 ft) is the workhorse. It handles a three-seater plus a chair.
- Open-plan living — 244 × 305 cm (8 × 10 ft) or larger. In open plan, the rug is what tells you where the lounge room stops and the dining room starts, so do not undersize it.
Leave 20–45 cm of bare floor between the rug and the skirting boards. A rug that runs wall to wall reads as bad carpet and makes the room feel smaller.
Bedroom
Aim for 45–60 cm of rug showing on each side of the bed, so your feet land on something soft on a cold Melbourne morning rather than on tile or timber.
- Queen bed — 183 × 274 cm (6 × 9 ft), placed under the lower two-thirds of the bed, starting just below the bedside tables.
- King bed — 244 × 305 cm (8 × 10 ft) if the room allows it.
- Small or rented bedroom — skip the big rug entirely. Two runners, one either side of the bed, do the same job for less money and are far easier to move.
Dining room
This one is pure arithmetic. Measure your table, then add 60 cm to every side. That is the clearance a dining chair needs to be pulled out without its back legs dropping off the edge, which is both annoying and a good way to wear a hole in a rug.
- Four-seater — 152 × 213 cm (5 × 7 ft)
- Six-seater — 183 × 274 cm (6 × 9 ft)
- Eight-seater or more — 244 × 305 cm (8 × 10 ft) and up
Flat-weave rugs work better under a dining table than deep pile. Chairs slide instead of catching, and crumbs come out with a vacuum rather than a wet cloth.
Hallway and entry
A hallway runner should leave an even margin of floor on both sides — roughly 10–20 cm each side is the look you want. In a standard Australian hallway of about 100–120 cm wide, that is exactly why 80 cm became the standard runner width.
For an entry, a 61 × 91 cm rug catches what comes in off the front step. Something in jute or a tight cotton weave holds up better here than a soft pile, because this is the highest-traffic square metre in the house.
Getting it right before you buy
Two minutes with a roll of painter's tape beats any size chart, including this one. Mark the rug's dimensions out on your floor, put the furniture where it would go, and live with it for a day. You will know immediately whether the size is right, and it costs nothing.
If you are between two sizes, go up. Almost nobody regrets a rug that is slightly too big. Plenty of people regret one that is slightly too small.
One note on timing
If you are buying a rug for a particular season, remember that handmade rugs are made to order. Ours are woven in Rajasthan and take a few weeks to reach Australia, so if you want a denser pile underfoot by the time the June cold arrives, order in April or early May rather than in the middle of winter. The same logic runs the other way for a lighter flat weave before December.
Ready to look at sizes against actual rugs? Start with our floor rugs for Australia page, which lists every size we make in centimetres, or go straight to the 183 × 274 cm range if you already know that is the one.