Podiatrist Tested

Toe Box Width Chart: 34 Shoes Measured in Millimetres

Clarification (8 October 2026): The chart describes outside laboratory samples. Its wide-option grouping does not compare regular and 4E versions of the same shoe; fixed size conversions and unverified measurement-noise thresholds were removed.

Every shoe box tells you a length and a letter. Neither of them tells you how much room there is where your toes actually are. The length is measured to the end of the longest toe. The width letter — D, 2E, 4E — is a fitting taken across the ball of the foot, at the joints behind the big and little toes. A bunion, a bunionette and a neuroma sit on that line, so the letter does reach them. A hammertoe, a corn, a thickened nail or a big toe that a bunion has pushed across the others sits further forward, and for that room there is no published number.

The table below compiles an outside laboratory’s published toe-box measurements for recorded model samples. They are not our own measurements. Width availability and a tested sample’s internal dimensions are different pieces of information, so check the exact size, width and version when using the chart.

What this number is, and what it is not

The figures come from RunRepeat’s laboratory, which buys shoes at retail, cuts them in half and measures them. Their published method takes toe box width “always at the same distance from the tip of the mold” — precisely 28.3 mm — which is roughly where the pulp of the big toe ends in a correctly sized shoe. Measuring at a fixed point is what makes the numbers comparable across brands: it removes the last’s length and its toe spring from the comparison and leaves only how much the upper tapers.

The same lab publishes a second forefoot figure, which it calls shoe width, taken at the widest points of the mould, between the first and fifth metatarsophalangeal joints. That number lands between about 92 and 98 mm on the shoes we hold. The big-toe number lands between about 67 and 84 mm. They are 20 mm apart and they are not interchangeable — if you find a “toe box width” quoted in the nineties, you are reading the ball of the foot, not the toes. A section further down sets the two side by side for all 34 shoes, with the toe box height the lab also measures, and shows why the order changes.

These are outside measurements of recorded samples, not a repeatability study or a regular-versus-wide comparison. Size, width, colourway and method may affect comparability. This page has no evidence establishing a universal 1 mm noise cutoff or a 5 mm clinically meaningful difference; use the numbers with an actual fit check.

The chart: 34 shoes, widest toe box first

Every figure is a laboratory measurement of the internal width at the big toe, in millimetres. Shoe names link to our review of that shoe, where the full specification and its sources are recorded.

Bars start at 60 mm rather than zero. The printed value is the recorded sample measurement; gold indicates that the model is offered in 4E, 6E, X-Wide or Extra Wide, not that the laboratory tested that width. The line is the median of this chart’s recorded samples.

The full table

Toe-box measurements are attributed to RunRepeat’s laboratory and describe recorded samples. “Fittings the brand sells” lists available variants; it does not identify the tested width. Consult the linked model source for sample details rather than applying a universal noise threshold.

Four fifths of the catalogue lives inside a 6 mm band

Across the 34 shoes, the measured toe box runs from 67.3 mm to 83.6 mm — a spread of 16.3 mm, or about two thirds of an inch of real estate at the front of the shoe. That sounds like a lot. The distribution says otherwise: 27 of the 34 sit between 70.0 and 76.0 mm, and the median is 72.8 mm.

The figures describe these recorded samples. They do not predict the toe room, comfort or clinical suitability of every size or width version, and cannot establish that moving between listed models will or will not solve an individual fit problem.

The shoes that genuinely sit outside the band are worth naming, because there are only a handful and they are all making a deliberate design decision rather than a marketing one. At the roomy end sit three Altras, the Torin 8, the Paradigm 8 and the new Torin 9 — foot-shaped lasts, 6 to 8 mm clear of the top of the band. At the tight end sit a group of conventional running lasts, and the narrowest shoe in the catalogue is one most people would guess the opposite way.

A wide fitting does not mean a wide toe box

The group comparison below is descriptive: it groups sampled models by the width options sold, not by a paired laboratory test of regular and extra-wide versions.

The recorded samples can be grouped by whether the model is offered in 4E, 6E, X-Wide or Extra Wide. The existing group averages describe those samples only. They do not show how a shoe changes when its width version changes, and the page has not tested whether the between-group difference exceeds measurement uncertainty.

The narrowest recorded sample belongs to a model offered in several widths. That does not establish the dimensions of its other width versions. A regular-versus-4E conclusion would require measurements of both variants under comparable conditions.

Width labels are useful starting information, but they do not replace a fit check of the exact shoe. The shoe width chart discusses the labels; this dataset does not establish that wider variants cannot help toe room.

Where your toes splay is not where a bunionette presses

The same lab publishes two more forefoot figures for every shoe it measures this way: the width at the widest point, across the metatarsal heads, and the height of the toe box at the big-toe mark. We hold both for all 34 shoes. Comparing the two widths is more useful than either one alone, because the gap between them is a direct measure of how sharply the shoe tapers.

All four figures are RunRepeat lab measurements of the same pair. “Taper” is the widest-point figure minus the big-toe figure — how much the shoe narrows between the ball of the foot and the ends of the toes. Toe box height is the vertical room inside the shoe, measured at the same point as the big-toe width. Sorted by taper, least first.

The recorded spread differs between the big-toe and widest-point measurements. This model-sample comparison does not establish why a particular width version relieves a bunion, hammertoe, corn or crowded toe, or which shoe will treat symptoms.

The order changes too, and not subtly. The Altra Torin 8 is the widest shoe here at the big toe, but only joint 14th of 34 at the widest point, with the Brooks Ghost 17 — third narrowest at the big toe — 0.1 mm behind it. The ASICS Gel-Nimbus 28 runs the other way: second widest of the 34 at the ball of the foot, below the median at the big toe. Read as taper, the Torin 8 flares by 11.7 mm from toes to ball, the Ghost 17 by 25.6 mm and the New Balance 990v6 by 26.8 mm. The three Altras taper least, by 11.7 to 15.5 mm; no other shoe here tapers by less than 18.5. A foot-shaped last is not a bigger shoe. It is a shoe that keeps its width where the toes are instead of giving it all back.

If you want that argument applied to one diagnosis, our guide to shoes for a tailor’s bunion works through what it means when the painful bone is on the outside of the forefoot, and wide toe box shoes covers what to look for in a last more generally.

Toe box height: the room over your toes

Width is only half of a toe box. A hammertoe, a clawed toe, a thickened nail or a corn on top of a toe presses up, into the roof of the shoe, and for those the number that matters is height. The lab measures it at the same point as the big-toe width. Across these 34 shoes it runs from 22.0 to 31.2 mm, a spread of 9.2 mm: seventeen give at least 27 mm, and six give less than 25.

Height has nothing to do with width. Across the 34, the two measurements do not move together at all (r = 0.05). The shoe with the narrowest toe box on this page, the New Balance 990v6, has the tallest one, 31.2 mm. The three Altras, the widest here, all sit below the middle for height, at 25.8 to 26.8 mm. And the ASICS Gel-Nimbus 28, second widest at the ball of the foot, has the second-lowest roof of the 34, 22.7 mm.

The deepest toe boxes we hold figures for are the New Balance 990v6 (31.2 mm), the HOKA Bondi 9 (29.6), the ASICS Gel-Cumulus 28 and HOKA Mach 7 (29.1 each), the Saucony Ride 19 (28.8) and the New Balance 880v15 (28.5). The lowest are the KURU ATOM 2 (22.0), the ASICS Gel-Nimbus 28 (22.7) and the Skechers Aero Burst (23.0).

Depth as well as width. A toe that rubs against the top of a shoe may need more space in that location; a wider label alone does not establish extra depth. AAOS guidance advises checking toe-box shape and depth. No patient case or treatment result is documented here.

An insert changes the shoe-and-device fit, so check it in the actual shoe; the Orthotic Volume Rating describes a proposed qualitative pairing assessment, not a completed measurement here. The source figures describe recorded samples and do not establish a universal millimetre cutoff. For related context, see shoes for ingrown toenails.

Shoe brands with a wide toe box, brand by brand

The chart above is sorted by shoe, because the shoe is what gets measured. The question most people actually arrive with is broader — which brands run wide. Below are the same 34 lab figures rolled up across the 13 brands on this site. Read the second column first: on several of these brands the number behind the figure is one or two shoes, and a brand verdict cannot be built on that.

Brand	Shoes measured	Widest on record	vs the median	Range across the brand	No figure yet
Altra	3	Altra Torin 8 — 83.6 mm	+10.8 mm	82.2–83.6 mm	—
HOKA	7	HOKA Gaviota 6 — 76.7 mm	+3.9 mm	70.2–76.7 mm	1
New Balance	5	New Balance Fresh Foam X 860v15 — 75.1 mm	+2.3 mm	67.3–75.1 mm	2
ASICS	5	ASICS GEL-CUMULUS 28 and ASICS Novablast 5 — 74.4 mm	+1.6 mm	71.3–74.4 mm	—
Brooks	7	Brooks Glycerin 23 — 73.9 mm	+1.1 mm	68.3–73.9 mm	1
Saucony	3	Saucony Ride 19 — 72.8 mm	+0.0 mm	71.4–72.8 mm	—
On	2	On Cloudrunner 2 — 72.4 mm	−0.4 mm	71.0–72.4 mm	—
Skechers	1	Skechers Aero Burst — 70.7 mm	−2.1 mm	single shoe	2
KURU	1	KURU ATOM 2 — 70.7 mm	−2.1 mm	single shoe	—
Dansko	0	Not published	—	—	1
OOFOS	0	Not published	—	—	1
Orthofeet	0	Not published	—	—	1
Vionic	0	Not published	—	—	1

Only four brands here are measured across five shoes or more: HOKA (7), Brooks (7), New Balance (5) and ASICS (5). Those are the only rows with enough behind them to describe a brand at all, and what they show is that the brand is the wrong unit. HOKA’s seven span 6.5 mm, from 70.2 to 76.7. Brooks’ seven span 5.6 mm, from 68.3 to 73.9; which Brooks has the widest toe box sets them side by side. New Balance’s five span 7.8 mm, ASICS’ five 3.1 mm. For HOKA’s seven side by side, with the new Arahi 9, the versions before them and what HOKA says its Wide and X-Wide add, see which HOKA has the widest toe box.

Now set Altra aside and look at the other eight brands’ widest shoes: they all fall inside a 6.0 mm band, from 76.7 mm down to 70.7 mm. New Balance alone covers a wider range than that, and so does HOKA. The variation inside one brand is larger than the variation between eight of them — which is the honest answer to “which brand has a wide toe box”: a brand is not a last, it is a company selling many lasts, and toe-box width belongs to the model.

Altra’s three figures are the three widest recorded here, which is consistent with how the brand describes its own foot-shaped last. Three shoes is still not a brand verdict, and this page is not making one. The same caution applies in the other direction: KURU and Skechers appear near the bottom on a single measured shoe each, which says nothing about the rest of their range.

Four brands — Dansko, OOFOS, Orthofeet and Vionic — carry no figure here at all. That is a statement about what the lab has published so far, not about their shoes. Those unmeasured models, 10 in total, are listed with a reason in the next section.

The ten shoes with no figure, and why

This site holds 44 published shoe records and 34 of them carry a measured toe box. The missing 10 are not an oversight and they are not coming soon, so it is worth saying plainly which they are and what the gap means.

Brooks Beast GTS 26 (Ariel GTS 26) · Dansko XP 2.0 · HOKA Bondi SR · New Balance 928v3 · New Balance Fresh Foam X 1540v4 · OOFOS OOahh Slide · Orthofeet Coral · Skechers GO WALK Arch Fit 2.0 · Skechers Hands Free Slip-ins · Vionic Walk Max

The pattern is the whole explanation: the lab that produces these measurements cuts open running shoes. Comfort, walking, recovery and slip-on brands are not in its programme, so a Dansko clog, an OOFOS slide, an Orthofeet or a Vionic will not appear here however long you wait. A second group — the Brooks Beast GTS 26 and the New Balance 1540v4 — has no lab review at all yet, and we do not borrow a predecessor’s figure: a last is exactly the thing manufacturers change between versions, so a number from last year’s model is not a measurement of this year’s shoe, it is a guess wearing a decimal point. One shoe fits neither group. The lab did cut open the HOKA Bondi SR, but under its older method, and it says itself that results from the two methods cannot be compared, so the Bondi SR stays off this chart until it is retested.

That leaves a real limitation, and it is the honest reason this chart is not longer: the shoes most often recommended to people who need room are the ones nobody measures. Closing that gap means measuring pairs ourselves, which is on the plan below rather than in the table above.

How to use this if you are shopping

What the research actually supports — and where it stops

Two findings are worth putting beside this chart, and both are narrower than the headlines usually made from them.

The first is that the fitting systems shops use control length and ball width, and nothing further forward. When researchers sized 56 older adults with a Brannock device, then scanned their feet in three dimensions and compared the result against the manufacturer’s last measurements, the allocated shoes were on average 23.6 mm longer than the foot (95% CI 22.1 to 25.2) — nearly an inch — while ball width differed by only 1.4 mm, a gap that did not reach statistical significance. Fitting worked, in the dimensions it measures. Almost an inch of surplus length has to go somewhere, and where it goes is the toe box, in whatever shape that particular last happens to give it.¹

The second is that the link between badly fitted shoes and foot problems is real but is mostly associative. A systematic search and narrative review of the literature found that incorrectly fitted footwear — too short or too narrow — is common and is associated with foot pain and with disorders including corns, calluses and lesser-toe deformity, with the strongest and most consistent evidence in people with diabetes. It also found that most of the underlying studies are cross-sectional, so they establish that the two travel together, not that one caused the other.²

What that means for this page: a measured toe box is a fit specification, not a treatment. It is a good reason to rule a shoe out, and a poor reason to expect a shoe to fix a deformity that already exists.

Questions patients ask

Is a wider toe box always better? No single width suits every foot. Check that the exact shoe is secure without pinching the toes; this chart does not establish that spare room causes clawing, callus or nail trauma. AAOS guidance recommends checking overall fit, toe shape and depth rather than relying on a width label alone.

Why will no brand publish this number? This chart’s sourced manufacturer records do not provide the same internal measurement used by the outside laboratory. That does not establish why a manufacturer omits it or that no brand ever publishes a toe-box dimension. Compare stated methods and sample details when figures are available.

Does going up half a size give me a wider toe box? This chart has no measured size series establishing a universal width increase per full or half size. Compare the exact size and width and check both length and toe room, rather than using a fixed conversion.

Can I measure my own shoe? A removable insole can provide a rough shape comparison: place the foot on it and compare the forefoot edges. Its shape is not the shoe’s full internal volume, and an overhang cannot diagnose pain or identify which chart measurement is responsible. Check the actual shoe for toe pressure and secure fit as well.

Toe box width or toe box height? Both can matter; the site of pressure in the actual shoe is more useful than assigning every diagnosis to one dimension. The outside samples have reported heights from 22.0 to 31.2 mm, but this chart does not establish independence between width and height or a treatment threshold. Check that toes are not pinched or pressed against the top.

What happens next on this page

Sources

1. RunRepeat, How we test and measure shoes — laboratory method, including the toe box width measurement taken at a fixed 28.3 mm from the tip of the mould, the toe box height taken at the same point, and the separate widest-point “shoe width” measurement between the first and fifth metatarsophalangeal joints. Every millimetre figure on this page is from that lab.
2. Menz HB, Auhl M, Ristevski S, Frescos N, Munteanu SE. Evaluation of the accuracy of shoe fitting in older people using three-dimensional foot scanning. Journal of Foot and Ankle Research. 2014;7:3. doi:10.1186/1757-1146-7-3
3. Buldt AK, Menz HB. Incorrectly fitted footwear, foot pain and foot disorders: a systematic search and narrative review of the literature. Journal of Foot and Ankle Research. 2018;11:43. doi:10.1186/s13047-018-0284-z
4. Manufacturer product pages and major retailer listings for every shoe in the table, for price, drop, weight and the fittings each model is sold in. Where a manufacturer publishes nothing, the cell says so rather than borrowing a retailer’s figure silently. Per-shoe provenance is recorded on each review page and in the shoe spec database.

Sourced, not guessed

Recently reviewed

Individual shoe pages state their evidence tier, published measurements and who should skip them.

Saucony

Saucony Endorphin Speed 5

Spec Analysis

Light plated neutral trainer. Saucony publishes both stack heights and they match its 8 mm drop — not yet tested.

$175Not scoredRegular / Wide

HOKA

HOKA Mach 6

Spec Analysis

Lower, firmer neutral HOKA. HOKA publishes a 5 mm drop and neither stack height — not yet tested.

Not scored

ASICS

ASICS Novablast 5

Spec Analysis

Bouncy high-stack neutral. ASICS publishes an 8 mm drop and neither stack height — not yet tested.

Not scoredStandard / Wide / Extra Wide

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