Skip to content
ToolBoxGenie

Force Converter

Converters · Added 15 August 2026

Convert force between newtons, the gravitational units like kilogram-force and pound-force, and the older CGS dyne. The distinction worth holding onto is that a kilogram is a mass and a kilogram-force is a weight — the force that mass exerts under standard gravity.

Result

1 kgf in newton

9.80665 N

1 kgf = 9.80665 N

The same value in every unit

Newton (N)
9.80665
Millinewton (mN)
9,806.65
Kilonewton (kN)
0.00980665
Meganewton (MN)
0.00000980665
Gram-force (gf)
1,000
Kilogram-force (kgf)
1
Tonne-force (tf)
0.001
Pound-force (lbf)
2.20462262
Ounce-force (ozf)
35.2739619
Kip (1,000 lbf) (kip)
0.00220462262
Poundal (pdl)
70.9316353
Dyne (dyn)
980,665

Kilogram-force and pound-force are weights, not masses: they are what a kilogram or a pound presses down with under standard gravity, 9.80665 m/s². On the Moon the mass is unchanged and the force is about a sixth of it.

How to use the force converter

  1. 1Enter the force value you are converting.
  2. 2Pick the unit it is in and the unit you want.
  3. 3The result and a full reference table appear as you type.
  4. 4Use the swap button to reverse the direction.
  5. 5For pressure — force spread over an area — use the pressure converter instead.

Examples

Weight of a 10 kg mass

Input
10 kgf
Result
98.07 N · 22.05 lbf

A 10 kg mass presses down with about 98 newtons on Earth. The mass is unchanged elsewhere; the force is not.

Structural load

Input
50 kN
Result
11,240.45 lbf · 5,098.6 kgf

Structural engineering works in kilonewtons; the imperial equivalent is usually quoted in kips.

Bolt preload

Input
1 kip
Result
4.448 kN · 453.59 kgf

A kip is a thousand pound-force, common in US civil engineering.

About the force converter

Newton's second law, and the units built around it

Force equals mass times acceleration. The newton is defined directly from that relationship: one newton accelerates one kilogram at one metre per second squared. No conversion constant appears anywhere, which is the whole design goal of a coherent unit system and the reason SI calculations tend to come out clean.

The gravitational units — kilogram-force, pound-force, tonne-force — take a different approach. They define force as the weight of a familiar mass under a fixed standard gravity. That is convenient for anyone who weighs things, which is most people, and it is why these units persist in mechanical engineering long after the newton became standard.

The cost of the gravitational approach is a constant that has to be carried through every dynamics calculation. Working in kilogram-force means dividing by 9.80665 whenever acceleration appears. Working in newtons means it never does. This is why physics teaching insists on SI even where industry has not fully followed.

Where each unit is actually used

The newton and kilonewton dominate structural and mechanical engineering worldwide, and any modern standard will be written in them. Kilogram-force survives in older machinery documentation, in some Asian and European manufacturing contexts, and anywhere a specification was translated from a pre-SI original.

Pound-force and the kip are standard in United States civil and structural engineering — a kip being a thousand pound-force, adopted because structural loads in pounds produce inconveniently large numbers. Ounce-force appears in small mechanisms, switch actuation forces and product testing.

The dyne, from the older CGS system, is now largely confined to surface tension measurements and some older physics literature. It is very small — a hundred thousand dynes make a newton — which made it convenient for the laboratory-scale phenomena CGS was built around. Where you meet one of these units, the safest habit is to convert to newtons immediately and do the work there.

Frequently asked questions

Is a kilogram a unit of force?
No. A kilogram is a unit of mass — how much matter there is, which does not change no matter where you take it. A kilogram-force is a unit of force: what that mass presses down with under standard gravity, about 9.807 newtons. Everyday speech blurs the two because on Earth's surface the relationship is fixed, but on the Moon a 10 kg mass is still 10 kg while its weight drops to about 1.6 kgf.
What is standard gravity and why is it exact?
Standard gravity is defined as exactly 9.80665 m/s². It is a conventional value agreed by definition, not a measurement — actual gravitational acceleration varies with latitude, altitude and local geology, roughly from 9.78 at the equator to 9.83 near the poles. The fixed value exists so that kilogram-force and pound-force have unambiguous definitions rather than ones that change when you move.
What is a poundal, and why is it different from pound-force?
They belong to two different attempts at making imperial units self-consistent. A poundal is the force that accelerates one pound of mass at one foot per second squared — about 0.138 newtons. A pound-force is the weight of one pound under standard gravity — about 4.448 newtons, roughly 32 times larger. The two systems avoid needing a conversion constant in Newton's second law, but in opposite ways, and mixing them produces errors of a factor of about 32.
How do I convert force to pressure?
Divide by the area the force acts on. One newton spread over one square metre is one pascal. That means the same force produces wildly different pressures depending on contact area, which is the principle behind both a knife edge and a snowshoe. Use the pressure converter once you have force per unit area.

Related tools