So Exactly How Much Weight Can Your Office Chair Hold?

This website is supported by its readers. If you click one of my links I may earn a commission. I am also a participant in the Amazon affiliates programme and I will also earn a commission from qualified purchases.

Office chairs. Let’s face it your home office chair kicks your work office chairs butt doesn’t it? I meant you did the research and found one that’s just comfortable for you. But how much weight can office chairs hold? And will your office chair break on you? 

Standard office chairs can hold up to 250 pounds or 113 kg in weight. Larger office chairs such as Big and Tall office chairs can hold up to 500 pounds or 226 kg in weight. 

So why exactly is it important to know the weight limits of your chair. Do some types of chairs have a better capacity than others? Keep reading to find out more.

Just an FYI if you want my recommendation for an office chair it would have to be the Flash Furniture office chair. Not only is it super comfortable and durable but it’s super easy to move around. You can read up more on it and my other chair recommendations here. 

(Just a heads up a lot of people reading my blog are in the process of designing their own home office. If you want to save some of the painstaking time I did in designing my office, you can find my non-chair recommended products here)

How much weight can your office chair hold? 

I’ll just say this, there is no one size fits all when it comes to the weight limits of office chairs. There is so much variety, design differences and small details that are different to really compare different chairs ( think comparing apples to oranges… then feel hungry and buy some)

That being said most office chairs will fall in two types. Standard office chairs and big and tall office chairs.The weight limit differences are typically: 

• Standard office chairs 250 pounds (113 kg) 
• Big and Tall office chairs up to 500 pounds (226 kg)  

Now this is of course still quite a broad guideline so let’s look at 5 examples of chairs below to look at the weight limits. 

Chair Name	Weight Limit
Flash Furniture	300 pounds (136 KG)
Ergonomic Office Chair	250 pounds (113 KG)
Furmax Office Chair	280 Pounds (127 KG)
Winsome Wood	220 pounds (104 KG)
Poly & Bark	275 pounds (124 kg)

As you can tell for standard weight limits the range of weight a standard office chair can support seems much more like a range between 200 pounds to 300 pounds. 

How strict are these weight limits

Good question. Often at times manufacturers will actually underplay the amount of weight their products can handle in case there are any issues with production or faulty products. 

One of the ways I like to look at office chairs to see if the weight loads are actually legitimate is by reading the comments or questions on sites like Amazon to take the true weight limits. 

In most occasions you will find that in the comments, home office chairs can support a lot more weight then they originally advertise. 

Why are office chair weight limits important? 

A few reasons. The most important one being you don’t want to purchase a chair that won’t be able to support your weight. There is nothing worse than sitting on a chair that automatically drops or bends under your weight.

On top of this if your chair is not able to support your weight properly it’s going to be much more uncomfortable for you to sit in, potentially affecting your own health and safety.  

On top of this, if you are buying a chair for a public office, not for your home workstation, you want to make sure any chair is able to support your colleagues weight as well. 

There is nothing worse than having your colleagues feeling embarrassed because of the chair you supplied them with and if you feel that a standard 250 pound supporting chair is not able to support their weight then feel free to get something like a big and tall chair. 

Finally the rate of obesity is increasing in most western countries like the UK and USA, meaning that weight limits over the next few years are going to be more and more important. 

Different types of chairs 

Now we know roughly the weight limits of standard office chairs, let’s break these down in further categories. 

In my (very broad opinion) these are the main types of chairs home/public offices have: 

• Standard Office chairs 
• Big and Tall office chairs 
• Wooden Chairs
• Plastic Chairs 
• Gaming chairs 

Let’s take a lot at these with some examples

Standard Office Chairs 

Standard office chairs are the most common type of chair out there, take a look at yours and it is most likely one of these. 

Chair Name	Weight Limit	Chair Weight
Flash Furniture	300 pounds (136 KG)	11.25 pounds (5.1 KG)
Ergonomic Office Chair	250 pounds (113 KG)	36.3 pounds (16.4 KG)
Furmax Office Chair	280 Pounds (127 KG)	39.5 pounds (17.9 KG)

The average weight limit of standard office chairs 276 pounds (125 KG) 

Big & Tall Office Chairs 

Big and Tall office chairs are specifically designed to have much more weight and back support and should be able to support more weight than standard office chairs. Does this hold true? 

Chair Name	Weight Limit	Chair Weight
Sadie Big and Tall	400 pounds (181 KG)	44 pounds (19.9 KG)
Amazon Basics	500 pounds (226 KG)	58 pounds (26.3 KG)
Big and Tall Heavy Duty	500 pounds (226 KG)	50 pounds (22.6 KG)

The average weight limit of  Big and tall office chairs is 466 pounds (211 KG) 

Wooden Chairs

Wooden chairs used to be the standard when it came to office desks, although they often ( in my opinion) look nicer, they aren’t very comfortable. 

Chair Name	Weight Limit	Chair Weight
Winsome Wood	220 pounds (104 KG)	16 pounds (7.2 KG)
Poly & Bark	275 pounds (124 KG)	12.85 pounds (5.8 KG)
Armen Living	250 pounds (113 KG)	10.55 pounds (4.78 KG)

The average weight limit of  wooden chairs is 248.3 pounds (112 KG) 

Plastic Chairs

Plastic chairs are typically a cheaper alternative to standard office chairs. 

Chair Name	Weight Limit	Chair Weight
Flash Furniture	200 pounds (90.7 KG)	10 pounds (4.5 KG)
Modway Casper	331 pounds (150 KG)	7.68 pounds (3.4 KG)
Poly and Bark	250 pounds (113 KG)	11 pounds ( 4.9 KG)

The average weight of plastic chairs is 9.56 pounds (4.33 kg) 

Gaming Chairs

Gaming chairs are becoming more and more important with more and more people using these specifically when shooting zombies or shouting at kids online. 

Chair Name	Weight Limit	Chair Weight
Respawn 110	275 pounds (124 KG)	51.8 pounds (23.4 KG)
Best Office	250 pounds (113 KG)	34 pounds (15.4 KG)
Desino	300 pounds (136 KG)	52.9 pounds ( 23.9 KG)

The average weight limit of gaming chairs is 275 pounds (124 KG)

Now that we have the data let’s break down some FAQs you might have about the results: 

How much weight does the average chair support?

As we can see from the results above, if we average out all the results we can determine that the average amount of weight a chair can support is 305 pounds or 138 Kilos. 

Which type of chair can support the most amount of weight? 

Again from the results of our quick search around we can determine that the best chairs that are able to support the most amount of weight are big and tall chairs which can on average support 466 pounds ( 211 KG). 

How heavy are office chairs? 

So now that we know how much weight office chairs can hold, what about how heavy these chairs are? I mean it’s all well and good if you want a Big and tall office chair but will it cause any damage moving it around your house? The last thing you want to do is do in your back moving the damn thing around. 

So how heavy are office chairs? 

On average standard office chairs weigh 29 pounds or 13.1 KG. Big and tall office chairs weigh 50.6 pounds or 22.9 KG

If you’re interested in learning a little more about this I’ve written a blog post talking all about this here. Now chairs are incomplete without desks so I’ve also written a post talking all about the weight limits on desks which you can read here too.  

Wrapping Things Up

So to summarise, on average office chairs can hold  between 250 – 500 pounds. 

 It’s Important to note that the best thing to do when working out the weight load of your chair is just simply to weigh yourself or whoever else will be using the chair and make a judgement from there. 

The most accurate way to work out the weight load of a chair is just to contact your manufacturer directly  who should have a contact number in the assembly manual provided. 

Finally a lot of people reading my blog want to know what products I recommend for a home office/remote working. You can find out my recommendations here and learn how I make money whilst working remotely on the side here. 

Either way hopefully the blog post has helped give some insight and given you something to consider before you part ways with your hard earned cash!

Fehed.