TDEE Calculator
This TDEE calculator finds your total daily energy expenditure, the calories you burn in a full day. Enter your age, sex, height, weight, and activity level, and you'll get your TDEE along with your BMR and a table comparing every activity level. It's the number to plan a diet around, whether you're cutting, maintaining, or bulking, and it works in metric or imperial.
- Total daily burn
- BMR included
- All activity levels
- Mifflin-St Jeor
- Metric or imperial
Last updated June 17, 2026 Estimates only, not medical advice Reviewed by the Calcowa team
Enter your age, height, and weight above 0.
For adults. This is a screening estimate, not medical or dietary advice.
These are estimates, not medical or dietary advice. Real burn varies with genetics, muscle, and more.
Your TDEE at every activity level
Each level multiplies your BMR by a different factor. Your selected level is highlighted, but seeing them side by side helps if your week varies.
| Activity level | Factor | TDEE |
|---|
What is TDEE?
TDEE, or total daily energy expenditure, is the number of calories your body burns over a full day. It starts with your basal metabolic rate, the energy you'd use lying still all day, and adds everything else: walking, working, training, and digesting. Because it captures your whole day, it's the figure you build a diet around. Eat at your TDEE to hold your weight, below it to lose, and above it to gain. That's the entire logic of calorie planning in one number.
How do you calculate TDEE?
Here's how the calculator runs, for a 30-year-old man, 178 cm and 73 kg, who's moderately active:
- 1
Find your BMRMifflin-St Jeor: 10 × kg + 6.25 × cm − 5 × age + 5 for men. That gives about 1,692 calories.
- 2
Choose an activity factorModerately active uses 1.55. The factors run from 1.2 sedentary to 1.9 very active.
- 3
Multiply for TDEE1,692 × 1.55 is about 2,623 calories, your total daily energy expenditure.
- 4
Adjust for a goalEat near your TDEE to maintain, a few hundred below to lose, or above to gain.
BMR, TDEE, and your daily calories
It's easy to mix up BMR and TDEE, so here's the difference. Your BMR is what you'd burn at total rest, and your TDEE is that BMR scaled up for everything you actually do. You eat at your TDEE, never your BMR, because nobody lies still all day. Once you have your TDEE, turning it into a target is simple: the calorie calculator lays out maintenance, loss, and gain numbers, and the BMI calculator shows where your weight sits. Pick an activity level honestly, since most people lean a notch too high.
Frequently asked questions
How many calories do I burn a day?
That number is your TDEE, and it's what the calculator above gives you. For many adults it lands somewhere between 1,800 and 2,800 calories, but yours depends on your size, age, sex, and how active you are.
TDEE stands for total daily energy expenditure, the total calories your body burns in a day. It's your resting burn plus everything you do: moving, exercising, even digesting food. Eat at your TDEE and your weight holds; eat below it and you lose; eat above it and you gain. It's the single most useful number for planning a diet, and this TDEE calculator works it out for you.
You start with your basal metabolic rate, the calories you'd burn at complete rest, then multiply by an activity factor. The factors run from 1.2 for sedentary up to 1.9 for very active. This tool finds your BMR with the Mifflin-St Jeor equation, then applies the activity level you pick. The table above shows your TDEE at every level so you can see the range.
Yes, that's the whole point of the activity multiplier. Your BMR covers only resting needs, and the factor scales it up to account for workouts, walking, and daily movement. So you don't add exercise calories on top of your TDEE; they're already baked into the level you choose. If anything, most people overestimate their activity, so picking one level lower is often more honest.
Be honest about a typical week, not your best one. Sedentary fits a desk job with little exercise; light is 1 to 3 workouts a week; moderate is 3 to 5; active is 6 to 7; and very active suits hard daily training or a physical job. When you're unsure between two, the lower one is usually closer, since planned exercise rarely fills as much of the week as it feels like.
BMR is what you burn doing nothing, just keeping your body alive. TDEE is BMR times an activity factor, so it adds in all your movement. BMR is always the smaller number. You eat at your TDEE, not your BMR, since you're never truly at rest all day. The result above shows both, with the BMR as the starting point.
It often is, if you know your body fat percentage. Katch-McArdle bases your BMR on lean body mass instead of total weight, which suits lean or very muscular people better. Enter a body fat percentage above and the calculator switches to it automatically. Without that figure, Mifflin-St Jeor is the reliable default for most people.
Related calculators
More tools for diet and fitness.
Maintenance, loss, and gain targets.
BMR calculatorCalories burned at rest.
BMI calculatorBody mass index and weight range.
Planning your calories?
Find your TDEE above, or browse the full health hub.