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Protocol
Method steps
- Weigh or estimate dry, before loadingCapacity is rated in dry weight, so weigh laundry before it goes in. Stand on a bathroom scale holding the basket, note the figure, then subtract your own weight to get the load's dry weight.
- Or add up the itemsUse the per-item estimates: a men's t-shirt is about 250 g, a pair of jeans about 700 g, a bath towel about 700 g. Sum the pieces to approximate the load.
- Load loose so clothes can moveWhirlpool advises loading in loose piles around the drum wall and avoiding overloading, so water and detergent circulate freely.
- Size bulky bedding by drum room, not weightA duvet is light but bulky. Hotpoint suggests about an 8 kg drum for a single duvet, 8–9 kg for a double, and 9 kg for a king — driven by space to move, not the duvet's mass.
For machines sold in the EU, a washing machine’s kg rating is the maximum mass of dry laundry it is built for — Regulation 2019/2023 defines it in 0.5 kg steps, and it means dry textiles, never wet weight or drum volume. As a rough guide, a medium everyday load is about 2.7 kg (6 lb) dry. But weight is only half the story: a light, bulky duvet can fill the drum before it ever reaches the kg limit. Below: per-item dry weights, load sizes, the dry-versus-wet gap, and how to size a machine.
In short: load sizes at a glance
These are approximate dry weights — the figure your machine’s rating actually refers to. You can check your own by weighing a single item on a digital kitchen scale↗, or a whole load with the bathroom-scale trick further down.
| Load size | Dry weight | (lb) | Typically |
|---|---|---|---|
| Medium / regular | ~2.7 kg | ~6 lb | an everyday mixed wash |
| Large | ~5 kg | ~11 lb | a full mixed wash |
| Extra-large | ~9.5 kg | ~21 lb | the largest mixed loads |
These are approximate weights from Tide’s load-size guidance; the section below sets out exactly what each load holds, and the regulatory definition is what makes “dry weight” itself exact.
Why a washing machine’s kg rating is dry weight
The number on the door is a dry-weight spec, set by law for EU-market machines. Regulation (EU) 2019/2023 defines rated capacity as the maximum mass in kilogram, declared at 0.5 kg intervals, of dry textiles that can be treated in one washing cycle. So a 7 kg machine takes 7 kg of dry clothes — not 7 kg of soaked ones, and not a drum volume.
There is a measurement standard underneath that figure too: IEC 60456 (EN 60456 in the EU) defines the test methodology and treats remaining moisture content — the water left in the fabric after the spin — as a defined, measured quantity, using a standardized cotton base load. In other words, the fact that textiles come out heavier than they went in is expected and quantified, not arbitrary. (Rated capacity and remaining moisture content are in the Care Symbol Glossary.)
The practical upshot: weigh or estimate your laundry before it goes in. After a rinse, the same load weighs considerably more — which is exactly why the rating is a dry figure.
How much each item weighs
The table below uses approximate dry estimates from inthewash.co.uk (a secondary UK reference — per-garment weights are estimates, not certified specifications). Treat them as guides, not certified specs; actual weight varies by fabric, cut and size. Each cell shows metric with the imperial equivalent (1 kg ≈ 2.2 lb).
Clothing
| Item | Children | Women's | Men's |
|---|---|---|---|
| T-shirt | ~80 g (~3 oz) | ~150 g (~5 oz) | ~250 g (~9 oz) |
| Cotton jumper | ~500 g (~1.1 lb) | ~500 g (~1.1 lb) | ~900 g (~2.0 lb) |
| Jeans | ~200 g (~7 oz) | ~500 g (~1.1 lb) | ~700 g (~1.5 lb) |
| Smart trousers | ~250 g (~9 oz) | ~400 g (~0.9 lb) | ~650 g (~1.4 lb) |
| Shorts | ~200 g (~7 oz) | ~350 g (~12 oz) | ~400 g (~0.9 lb) |
| Light jacket | ~1 kg (~2.2 lb) | ~1.2 kg (~2.6 lb) | ~2 kg (~4.4 lb) |
| Socks (pair) | ~30 g (~1 oz) | ~60 g (~2 oz) | ~70 g (~2 oz) |
| Trainers (pair) | ~400 g (~0.9 lb) | ~600 g (~1.3 lb) | ~900 g (~2.0 lb) |
Household linen
| Item | Dry weight | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Cotton bath towel | ~700 g (~1.5 lb) | a standard cotton towel |
| Double quilt cover | ~700 g (~1.5 lb) | cover only |
| Cotton tea towel | ~300 g (~11 oz) | a standard cotton tea towel |
| Cotton pillowcase | ~250 g (~9 oz) | varies by thread count |
One caution on the source: a few of its figures (a dressing gown listed at 6–8 kg, net curtains at 6.5 kg) are implausibly high against the rest of the table and look like errors, so they are left out here. The same figures are published as a machine-readable dataset — download them as JSON or CSV.
How to weigh your own laundry. Three methods cover most cases — or let our laundry weight calculator add a load up for you. The quickest by hand is to add up the per-item estimates above — a few men’s t-shirts at about 250 g each, a pair of men’s jeans at about 700 g, a bath towel at about 700 g — to approximate the load. To weigh a whole load directly, stand on a bathroom scale holding the basket, note the figure, then subtract your own weight. For a single item — an odd duvet, a heavy coat — a digital kitchen scale↗ gives a direct per-item reading.
A scale like this is cheap and precise for one piece at a time, which makes it handy when you just want to know what an odd, heavy item weighs. The trade-off: it can’t take a whole basket, so for full loads the bathroom-scale subtraction method above is faster and just as good.
Laundry weight calculatorAdd up your items to size your machine, see what a load holds, or check how many of one thing fits — all from the same sourced weights.
Build a loadWhat a full load actually holds
Per-item weights matter most as a whole load. Tide’s load-size guidance gives concrete mixed loads at each size — the practical answer to “how many things fit?”:
- Medium (~2.7 kg): 6 t-shirts, 1 pair of socks, 2 skirts, 1 women’s sweater, 1 men’s sweater, 3 pairs of trousers, and 3 pairs of underwear.
- Large (~5 kg): 12 t-shirts, 6 pairs of socks, 3 skirts, 1 women’s sweater, 1 men’s sweater, 5 pairs of trousers, and 4 pairs of underwear.
- Extra-large (~9.5 kg): 12 t-shirts, 12 pairs of socks, 6 skirts, 8 women’s sweaters, 7 men’s sweaters, 6 pairs of trousers, and 6 pairs of underwear — a load that needs a large-capacity machine.
Counts are illustrative — swap in your own items using the table above — but they show how an everyday wash sits comfortably within a common household machine, while the extra-large list is a load that only a large-capacity machine handles.
What size washing machine do you need?
Capacity by household is a judgement call, not arithmetic. Hotpoint’s buying guidance maps it roughly: a 7 kg machine suits individuals or couples with moderate laundry; 8 kg small families, or anyone who regularly washes bulkier items; 9 kg larger families or frequent laundry; 10 kg large families or heavy laundry loads.
| Capacity | (≈ lb) | Best suited to |
|---|---|---|
| 7 kg | ≈15 lb | Individuals or couples, moderate laundry |
| 8 kg | ≈18 lb | Small families, or bulkier items regularly |
| 9 kg | ≈20 lb | Larger families, frequent laundry |
| 10 kg | ≈22 lb | Large families, heavy laundry |
Bulkier washing — towels, bedding, work clothes — pushes you toward the upper end of that guidance. When you are actually choosing a machine, the Washing Machine Guides hub covers the buying decision; this page is about the weight basis behind the number.
Dry weight vs wet weight: how much heavier when wet?
Wet laundry weighs substantially more than dry, because fabric holds water after the spin — but there is no fixed multiplier. How much it gains depends on the fabric and the spin speed.
Two sourced reference points show the range. A commercial-laundry figure puts 100 lb of dry terry towels at about 98 lb of water after extraction at 100G — nearly double — with retained water falling as spin force rises. At the domestic end, a patent disclosure cites cotton loads of roughly 1–8 kg retaining about 24% down to 11% residual moisture after a standard cycle, with heavier loads holding proportionally less.
The takeaway: never plan around a single “wet weighs X times dry” number — the gain depends on the fabric and how fast the machine spins. (Remaining moisture content is in the Care Symbol Glossary.)
When bulk beats weight: duvets and bedding
A kg figure measures mass, not the space an item takes up — and the drum runs out of room before it runs out of kilograms. A duvet is the classic case: light for its size, but its loft fills the drum, so it is sized to a machine by the room it needs to tumble, not by its low dry mass.
Manufacturer guidance bears this out. Hotpoint recommends about an 8 kg drum for a single duvet, an 8 or 9 kg machine for a double, and a 9 kg machine for a king-size — driven by space, not weight. The signal is simple: if a duvet packs your drum so the contents can’t move, that is the moment to size up, whatever the scale says. For the wash itself, see How to Wash Bed Sheets.
What overloading does to your wash and your machine
Two things go wrong when the drum is packed. First, the wash suffers: Whirlpool advises that overloading “can lead to poor cleaning,” because clothes need room to move so water and detergent circulate — load in loose piles around the drum wall rather than cramming it. Second, the machine suffers: appliance-service guidance reports that overloading strains the motor, drum bearings, suspension and belts, accelerating wear and shortening the machine’s lifespan.
You don’t need a scale to get it right. Tide’s rule is that for a large load the drum should be three-quarters full, confirmed by the hand test: if your hand fits between your clothes and the wall of the drum, the load is the right size. If it doesn’t, take something out.
Two quick pointers for the rest: dose scales with how much you wash, so see How Much Laundry Detergent to Use; and the cycle and temperature follow the load and fabric, covered in the Laundry Temperature Guide.
Bottom line
On an EU-market machine, read the kg rating as what it legally is — a maximum of dry laundry, in 0.5 kg steps. Use the per-item and load-size estimates to picture a load, weigh dry when it matters, and load loose so clothes can move. Then watch the one thing weight hides: a bulky duvet fills the drum long before it hits the limit, so size bedding by space, not mass.
Related reading
- Washing Machine Guides — the buying decision: capacity, type, and care
- How Much Laundry Detergent to Use — dose scales with load size
- Laundry Temperature Guide — choose the cycle once the load is set
- How to Wash Bed Sheets — bedding loads and machine sizing
- Care Symbol Glossary — decode rated capacity and the care-label symbols