SnapCalorieBurn — free MET-based calorie calculators
Find out exactly how many calories you burn walking for 30 minutes. Weight-based calorie table plus pace and terrain tips.
Walking for 30 minutes burns approximately 100–170 calories, depending on your body weight and walking speed.
A 30-minute walk is the most commonly recommended exercise duration by health professionals. It covers roughly 1.5 miles (2.4 km) at a moderate 3 mph pace and accumulates 3,000–4,000 steps.
Walking 30 minutes at moderate pace burns roughly half the calories of running for the same duration, but nearly three times what you'd burn sitting. Compared to cycling, a 30-minute walk burns about 70% of what leisure cycling achieves, but requires zero equipment.
For weight management, a daily 30-minute walk creates a weekly calorie deficit of 700–1,200 calories — enough to lose about 0.2–0.3 pounds per week without any dietary changes. Pair it with a 250-calorie daily reduction in food intake, and you're looking at roughly one pound of fat loss every two weeks.
Direct answer: 30 minutes of walking burns an estimated 103–182 calories, depending on body weight (180 lb / 82 kg: ~144 kcal). Intensity assumed: Moderate (3 mph) (MET 3.5). This is an estimate, not a measurement.
| Body weight | Calories burned |
|---|---|
| 130 lb (59 kg) | ~103 cal |
| 155 lb (70 kg) | ~123 cal |
| 180 lb (82 kg) | ~144 cal |
| 205 lb (93 kg) | ~163 cal |
| 230 lb (104 kg) | ~182 cal |
Example: At MET 3.5, a 180 lb (82 kg) person doing 30 minutes of walking burns approximately 144 calories: 3.5 × 82 × 0.50 h ≈ 144 kcal.
There is no single universal calorie figure for this activity. At 180 lb (82 kg) and the same 30 minutes:
| Style / effort | MET | Estimate |
|---|---|---|
| Slow (under 2 mph) | 2 | ~82 cal |
| Brisk (3.5 mph) | 4.3 | ~176 cal |
| Fast (4 mph) | 5 | ~205 cal |
| Power walking (4.5+ mph) | 7 | ~287 cal |
An estimated 103–182 calories, depending on body weight. A 180 lb (82 kg) person burns about 144 kcal, calculated as MET 3.5 × 82 kg × 0.50 hours.
About 4.8 kcal per minute for a 180 lb (82 kg) person, or 1.8 kcal per kilogram of body weight across the whole session.
Because the MET formula scales directly with body mass: a 130 lb person burns about 103 kcal here versus 182 kcal for a 230 lb person — a 77% spread for the identical session.
From the 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities, the reference database of measured MET intensities for physical activities. Every figure on this page uses that value in the formula Calories = MET × body weight (kg) × duration (hours).
They are estimates from population averages, not measurements. Individual results commonly land within about ±15% of the figure shown; actual intensity and pace, body composition and fitness, terrain and technique all shift the real number. The values are gross calories, so they include the energy you would have burned at rest.
Open the walking calorie calculator to enter your own weight, intensity and duration.