Standard Door Sizes: Interior, Exterior, and Closet Width Chart

Standard interior doors are 80 in tall (6 ft 8 in) and come in widths from 24 to 36 in, with 30 and 32 in doing most of the work in US homes; exterior front doors are almost always 36 in wide by 80 in tall. The number that trips people up isn’t the door itself — it’s the rough opening, which has to be about 2 to 2.5 in wider and taller than the slab so the frame and shims fit.

Standard door size chart: width, height, and rough opening

Door widths are named in feet and inches, so a "2/8" door is 2 ft 8 in, or 32 in. Here’s every common type in one place, with the rough opening you’d frame for a standard pre-hung unit. Rough opening numbers are typical for wood-framed walls; steel and masonry differ.

What to Look For When Buying an Interior Door

Once the width is set, the door type decides sound, feel, and how easy the install is.

• Slab vs pre-hung — a pre-hung door comes in its own frame and is far easier to install square
• Solid vs hollow core — a solid-core door blocks sound for bedrooms and offices; hollow-core is lighter and cheaper
• Swing direction — stand in the opening: the hinge side and swing decide left-hand vs right-hand
• Pre-bored hardware — a factory-bored door saves drilling for the knob and latch
• Material — MDF/molded panels paint smooth and cheap; solid wood costs more but lasts

Prices are typical US ranges and vary by brand, size, and features — ballparks, not quotes.

Which interior door width do you actually need?

For a plain bedroom or office door, 30 in is the safe default and what most builders hang. Drop to 28 in only for a tight bathroom or hall, and 24 in for a linen or shallow closet where nobody walks through.

Bump up to 32 in anywhere a wheelchair, walker, or a wide dresser has to pass — that extra 2 in is the difference between an easy day and gouged trim. There’s no building-code minimum on most interior widths, so the call comes down to traffic and what has to move through, not permits. If you’re setting up a workspace and want the room to feel open, door width feeds into the same clearances I cover in the home office setup guide.

Will your furniture fit through it?

A 30 in door gives you roughly 28 in of clear opening once the slab, stops, and hinges eat into it, so a sofa deeper than that has to go through on an angle or tipped on end. Measure the door’s clear width, then the sofa’s height and depth — the smaller of those two is usually the number that squeaks through.

I walk the whole tilt-and-hook trick in will a sofa fit through the door, and it pairs well with picking the right couch in the first place using the sofa size for a living room guide. Appliances are the other big one: a standard refrigerator’s dimensions mean a 36 in door is often mandatory to get one home, and side-by-side units may need the handles pulled first.

Exterior, closet, and the doors that break the rules

Exterior doors are thicker — 1.75 in versus 1.375 in for interior — and default to 36 in wide so you can move furniture and appliances in and out without a fight. That extra thickness, plus a solid or foam-filled core, is also what lets a front door carry a deadbolt and shrug off weather.

Closet doors are where widths scatter. Bi-fold and sliding bypass units are sized to the opening, not the leaf, so a 6 ft closet opening might run two 3 ft panels; pocket and barn doors track to one side and need clear wall for the slab to disappear into. Taller slabs exist too — 84 in and 96 in show up in newer builds and additions — but if you order one, confirm the frame and hinge count before the truck arrives.

Getting a big appliance like a washer through a laundry door is its own puzzle; the clearances in washer and dryer dimensions assume you can actually reach the room.

Pre-hung vs slab: what you’re actually buying

Before you fixate on widths, decide which of the two you’re ordering. A pre-hung door arrives complete — the slab already hinged inside a finished jamb — and it drops into a fresh rough opening, which is exactly why every rough-opening number in the chart above assumes a pre-hung install.

A slab door is just the panel. You buy it to swap into a jamb that’s already hanging straight, so it has to match the old hinge cutouts and the backset of the existing knob. For a new wall or a frame that’s racked out of square, go pre-hung and frame the opening 2 in over in width. For a clean replacement where the casing and jamb are solid, a slab saves money and trim work — just line up the hinges and backset before you order, or you’re chiseling fresh mortises.

US, UK, and Australian door sizes side by side

American 80 in doors aren’t a global standard, so if you’re sourcing or shipping across borders the numbers shift. UK internal doors run a touch shorter, and Australia leans on a metric range that’s close but not identical to the US slab.

Treat these as the widely-sold norms rather than hard law — merchants in each country carry their own spread, and older housing stock everywhere is full of odd sizes that need a custom slab.

How to measure before you order

Ten minutes with a tape saves a return trip. Run through this before you buy anything:

• Measure the slab, not the opening: width across the door face, then height, then thickness (1.375 in interior, 1.75 in exterior).
• For a replacement, note the hinge side and the backset so a new slab matches the existing jamb.
• For a new opening, measure the rough framing width and height, then subtract for the jamb and shim gap.
• Confirm the swing and which way the door has to open before ordering handed hardware.
• Measure the clear opening with the door swung 90 degrees if a wheelchair or wide furniture has to pass.

Accessibility: the 32 in clear rule

ADA and most residential accessibility guidance calls for 32 in of clear width, measured with the door open 90 degrees — not the nominal door size. Because the slab and stop steal 2 in or so, that usually means hanging a 34 or 36 in door to net 32 in clear. Swing-clear or offset hinges buy back an inch when you can’t widen the frame.

Strictly, the ADA governs public buildings, not private homes — but the 32 in figure carries straight into Fair Housing guidance and the ANSI A117.1 standard that aging-in-place remodels lean on. If you’re planning a bedroom for aging-in-place or a guest with mobility needs, size the door alongside the bed clearances — the bed and mattress size guide and the quick bed size calculator help you leave real walking room on both sides, not just enough to squeeze past.