What height should my standing desk be?
Updated 2026-09-23
Short answer
Set the surface so your elbows rest at roughly 90 degrees with your forearms parallel to the floor. In practice that means about 0.62 of your height when standing and about 0.40 when sitting — for someone 5 feet 10 inches, roughly 43.4 inches standing and 28 inches sitting. A desk only suits you if it reaches both.
Where the two numbers come from
Every desk-height calculator uses the same shortcut: elbow height is a fairly stable fraction of stature, about 0.62 standing and about 0.40 seated. They are estimates of a population average rather than measurements of you — someone long in the torso and short in the leg lands above the seated figure and below the standing one — but they are close enough to eliminate most of a catalog, which is all a starting point has to do.
Measure it against yourself before you trust it
Stand relaxed with your upper arms at your sides and your forearms level, and have someone measure from the floor to the underside of your elbow. Do the same seated in the chair you actually use. If those two numbers differ much from 0.62 and 0.40 of your height, use yours — they are the real specification and the ratios are only a stand-in for them.
Then read the minimum, not the maximum
Most people shopping for a standing desk look at how high it goes. The number that eliminates desks is how low it goes, because a large part of the market stops around 28 or 29 inches — the height of an ordinary fixed desk. A desk with a 29-inch floor suits someone about 6 feet 1 inch seated and is too tall for everyone shorter, which means it adds a standing position without fixing the sitting one you were unhappy with.
Things that shift both numbers
A thick top raises the whole range: a 1.75-inch walnut slab on a frame quoted frame-only adds nearly two inches to both ends. An under-desk keyboard tray does the opposite, effectively lowering the typing surface two to three inches, which is the standard rescue for a desk that will not go low enough. Casters add one to two inches at both ends. And a keyboard at the wrong height is far more consequential than a monitor at the wrong height, because you can raise a monitor on an arm and you cannot raise your own arms.
General ergonomic guidance, not medical advice. If you have a diagnosed back, neck or wrist condition, get a proper assessment rather than working from a ratio.
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