One US cup of granulated white sugar weighs 198 grams (about 7 ounces), according to King Arthur Baking’s ingredient weight chart. USDA FoodData Central lists 200 g per cup, so rounding to 200 g is safe for everyday baking. Packed brown sugar is heavier at 213 g per cup, and powdered sugar is much lighter at 113 g.
How many grams is 1 cup of sugar? #
| Sugar | 1 cup | 1 tablespoon | 1 teaspoon | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Granulated (white) | 198 g | 12.4 g | 4.1 g | King Arthur |
| Granulated (white) | 200 g | 12.5 g | 4.2 g | USDA |
| Brown sugar, packed | 213 g | 13.3 g | 4.4 g | King Arthur |
| Powdered (confectioners') | 113 g | 7.1 g | 2.4 g | King Arthur |
The two granulated figures differ by 1%, which you won’t taste. Sugar is much more forgiving than flour here. Its crystals are hard and don’t compress the way flour does, so a scooped cup and a spooned cup come out close to each other.
The mental shortcut #
1 cup of white sugar ≈ 200 g. That gives you 100 g per half cup, 50 g per quarter cup and about 12.5 g per tablespoon. Your answer will be within about 1% of King Arthur’s figure.
Cups of sugar to grams chart #
| Cups | Granulated | Brown (packed) | Powdered |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1/8 cup (2 tbsp) | 25 g | 27 g | 14 g |
| 1/4 cup | 50 g | 53 g | 28 g |
| 1/3 cup | 66 g | 71 g | 38 g |
| 3/8 cup | 74 g | 80 g | 42 g |
| 1/2 cup | 99 g | 107 g | 57 g |
| 2/3 cup | 132 g | 142 g | 75 g |
| 3/4 cup | 149 g | 160 g | 85 g |
| 1 cup | 198 g | 213 g | 113 g |
| 1 1/4 cups | 248 g | 266 g | 141 g |
| 1 1/2 cups | 297 g | 320 g | 170 g |
| 2 cups | 396 g | 426 g | 226 g |
| 3 cups | 594 g | 639 g | 339 g |
| 4 cups | 792 g | 852 g | 452 g |
Figures use King Arthur’s per-cup weights, rounded to the nearest gram.
Why do brown and powdered sugar weigh so differently? #
Brown sugar is white sugar coated in molasses, which makes it moist and clumpy. American recipes almost always mean packed brown sugar, pressed into the cup until it holds its shape when you tip it out. That’s how you get 213 g. A loosely spooned cup weighs considerably less, so if a recipe doesn’t say “packed,” it’s still the safe assumption.
Powdered sugar (confectioners’ or icing sugar) is ground very fine, usually with a little cornstarch to stop it caking. It traps a lot of air, which is why a cup weighs barely more than half a cup of granulated. It also settles in the bag. A cup scooped from a compacted box will be heavier than 113 g, and a cup of sifted powdered sugar lighter.
How do you convert grams of sugar to cups? #
Divide by 198 for granulated sugar. The table below uses that figure and translates each result into measures you can scoop.
| Grams | Cups | What to measure |
|---|---|---|
| 25 g | 0.13 | 2 tbsp |
| 50 g | 0.25 | 1/4 cup |
| 100 g | 0.51 | 1/2 cup |
| 150 g | 0.76 | 3/4 cup |
| 200 g | 1.01 | 1 cup |
| 250 g | 1.26 | 1 1/4 cups |
| 300 g | 1.52 | 1 1/2 cups |
| 400 g | 2.02 | 2 cups |
| 500 g | 2.53 | 2 1/2 cups |
| 1 kg | 5.05 | 5 cups + 2 1/2 tsp |
Handy pattern: granulated sugar comes out almost exactly 100 g per half cup, so metric sugar amounts in round hundreds convert to neat cup measures.
What about caster, superfine and raw sugar? #
King Arthur’s chart doesn’t list these, so there’s no single published figure to quote. British recipes usually call for caster sugar, which is finer than American granulated sugar and closer to what US stores sell as superfine. Coarse sugars like turbinado and demerara have bigger crystals with more air between them. For all three, if the recipe gives grams, weigh them and ignore the cup.
Worked examples #
Your cookie recipe calls for 3/4 cup of sugar and you want grams. 0.75 × 198 = 148.5 g. Call it 149 g, or 150 g using the round-number shortcut.
A British cake recipe calls for 175 g of caster sugar. 175 ÷ 198 = 0.88 cups, which is 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons. Superfine sugar is the closest US match.
You want to cut the sugar in a recipe by a quarter. The recipe says 1 cup (198 g). Three quarters of that is 149 g, far easier to hit on a scale than “3/4 cup” of a recipe you’ve already scaled once.
A soda label says 39 g of sugar. USDA puts a teaspoon of granulated sugar at 4.2 g, so that’s about 9 teaspoons.
Converting sugar on your phone #
Convert Units Calculator has granulated, packed brown and powdered sugar in its Cooking category, at the same 198 g, 213 g and 113 g per cup used in this article, and it shows the per-cup figure on screen so you know what it’s assuming. Type a recipe amount like “2/3” cup and read grams or ounces immediately, or go the other way and get a measuring-cup fraction back. The Cooking category is part of version 1.0.5, so update the app if you don’t see it.
For other ingredients, the cups to grams conversion chart covers 23 of them, and grams in a cup of flour explains why flour is the hard one. If you’d rather work in ounces, see grams to ounces.
Frequently asked questions #
How many grams is half a cup of sugar? #
Half a cup of granulated sugar is 99 g by King Arthur’s chart or 100 g using USDA’s figure. Half a cup of packed brown sugar is about 107 g.
How many cups of sugar are in 1 kg? #
About 5 cups of granulated sugar. A 4-pound bag (1.81 kg) holds a little over 9 cups.
How many grams of sugar are in a teaspoon? #
About 4.2 g of granulated sugar per level teaspoon, according to USDA data. That’s the number to use when you turn the grams on a nutrition label into teaspoons.
Is a cup of sugar 200 g or 250 g? #
A US cup of granulated sugar is 198 to 200 g. Some online charts use 250 g, which doesn’t match any published weight for a US cup. Even Australia’s larger 250 mL metric cup holds only about 209 g of sugar.
Does brown sugar weigh the same as white sugar? #
No. A cup of packed brown sugar weighs about 213 g against 198 g for white, because packing squeezes out air and the molasses adds weight. By weight they substitute one for one. By volume, a packed cup of brown sugar is a little more sugar than a cup of white.