Oven Temperature Conversion
Fahrenheit, Celsius and gas mark, converted as you type. And because a fan oven runs hotter than the dial suggests, the fan setting is shown right beside the conventional one.
Or pick a gas mark below and the other two follow.
Nearest mark to 350 °F is gas 4, exactly.
Recipes almost always give the conventional temperature unless they say otherwise. UK recipes that print two numbers give the fan one second, usually labeled "fan" or "fan-forced".
This is genuinely contested. American oven manuals and test kitchens generally say drop 25 °F. British recipe books say drop 20 °C, which is 36 °F, a noticeably bigger cut. Both are rules of thumb, not measurements of your particular oven. Start at 25 °F, and if your fan oven browns things too fast, move to the bigger drop.
(no fan)
How this is calculated
No lookup table, no rounding tricks. Three plain formulas, applied to whatever you type.
| Fahrenheit to Celsius | °C = (°F − 32) × 5 ÷ 9 |
|---|---|
| Celsius to Fahrenheit | °F = (°C × 9 ÷ 5) + 32 |
| Gas mark | Mark = (°F − 250) ÷ 25, for marks 1 to 9. Below that, gas ½ is 250 °F and gas ¼ is 225 °F. |
| Fan adjustment | Fan °F = conventional °F − 25 by default, and one gas mark lower. You can change that assumption above. |
Gas marks really are evenly spaced: every mark is 25 °F, so mark 4 is 350 °F and mark 7 is 425 °F. That is why a gas mark converts exactly while Celsius does not.
Oven temperature conversion chart
The temperatures bakers actually use, from a low meringue oven to a pizza blast. The big number in each cell is the exact conversion. The small line under it is the rounded number recipe books print, which is close enough and easier to dial in.
| °F | °C | Fan °C | Gas |
|---|---|---|---|
| 275 | 135books: 140 | 121UK: 120 | 1 |
| 300 | 149books: 150 | 135UK: 130 | 2 |
| 325 | 163books: 160 | 149UK: 140 | 3 |
| 350 | 177books: 180 | 163UK: 160 | 4 |
| 375 | 191books: 190 | 177UK: 170 | 5 |
| 400 | 204books: 200 | 191UK: 180 | 6 |
| 425 | 218books: 220 | 204UK: 200 | 7 |
| 450 | 232books: 230 | 218UK: 210 | 8 |
| 475 | 246books: 240 | 232UK: 220 | 9 |
| 500 | 260books: 260 | 246UK: 240 | 9+ |
The row for 350 °F is highlighted because it is the temperature most baking recipes use. "UK" in the fan column is the British rule of conventional °C minus 20, which cuts a little deeper than the American 25 °F rule. Most gas ovens stop at mark 9. Some charts extend the scale to mark 10 for 500 °F, following the same 25 °F per mark step.
What each baking temperature is for
Recipes do not pick these numbers at random. Lower temperatures set the middle before the outside colors. Higher ones brown and puff fast. Here is roughly what each one is doing.
| Temperature | Typically used for |
|---|---|
| 275 to 300 °F 135 to 150 °C, gas 1 to 2 | Meringues and pavlova, which dry out rather than bake. Slow custards. Keeping food warm without cooking it further. |
| 325 °F 163 °C, gas 3 | Cheesecakes, pound cakes, rich fruit cakes, custard pies, bar cookies. Also the fallback when something browns before the middle is done, or when you are baking in a dark or glass pan. |
| 350 °F 177 °C, gas 4 | The default for baking. Layer cakes, cupcakes, brownies, most drop cookies, muffins, quick breads, banana bread. If a recipe does not tell you, this is the temperature it means. |
| 375 °F 191 °C, gas 5 | Cookies you want crisp at the edge and chewy in the middle, scones, some muffins for a higher dome, and finishing a pie after its initial blast. |
| 400 °F 204 °C, gas 6 | Biscuits, scones, popovers and Yorkshire puddings, choux pastry at the start, roasted fruit for a crumble. |
| 425 °F 218 °C, gas 7 | Pie and galette crusts, puff pastry and other laminated doughs, and the first ten minutes of a loaf, where fast heat gives you oven spring. |
| 450 to 500 °F 232 to 260 °C, gas 8 and up | Pizza, focaccia, baguettes and artisan loaves. Most home ovens take a long time to reach these and hold them poorly, which is why pizza stones and steels exist. |
Read me Your oven is probably not the temperature it says
This converter turns one number into another number correctly. What it cannot do is promise that your oven produces that temperature, and it usually does not.
A home oven measures itself with a single sensor, normally near the back wall, and switches its element on and off around a target. That means two separate errors stack up. The first is calibration: the sensor's idea of 350 °F can sit well away from the real thing, and a drift of 25 °F or more is common, particularly in an older oven or one that has been moved. The second is swing: even a perfectly calibrated oven rises above and falls below the set point as the element cycles, and it is normal for the air temperature to move through a range rather than sit still.
On top of both, ovens have hot spots. The rack position, the shelf above, and whether the fan is running all change what the food feels rather than what the sensor reads.
The fix costs about the price of two bags of flour. Put a standalone oven thermometer on the middle rack, preheat for a full 20 minutes after the beep, and read it. If it reads 25 °F low, set your dial 25 °F higher and write the offset on a sticky note inside a cupboard door. Rotate pans halfway through to average out the hot spots. Do this once and every recipe you bake afterward gets more reliable, which is more than any converter can do for you.
This is also why every good recipe gives a doneness test as well as a time. The temperature and the clock are the plan. The toothpick, the spring-back and the thermometer are the truth.
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Questions bakers actually ask
Is 350 °F the same as 180 °C?
Near enough, and yes for baking. The exact conversion is 176.7 °C, which rounds to 177 °C. Recipe books print 180 °C because it is the number European ovens dial to, and the 3 degree difference is far smaller than the swing of a normal oven as its element cycles.
The same rounding happens all the way up the chart. 400 °F is exactly 204 °C and gets printed as 200 °C. 425 °F is 218 °C and gets printed as 220 °C. None of those gaps will change your cake. What will change your cake is a fan you did not account for, which is a 25 to 36 °F difference, not a 3 degree one.
What is 350 °F in gas mark?
Gas mark 4. The gas scale is beautifully simple: mark 1 is 275 °F and every mark after it adds 25 °F, so mark 4 is 350 °F, mark 6 is 400 °F and mark 9 is 475 °F. Below mark 1 the scale gets fractional, with gas ½ at 250 °F and gas ¼ at 225 °F for meringues and very slow baking.
If your recipe gives a temperature that falls between two marks, round to the nearer one and start checking a little early. A gas dial has no in-between settings, and you cannot split the difference by holding the knob halfway.
Do I really need to lower the temperature for a fan oven?
Yes, for most baking. A fan oven is not hotter on the thermometer, it is hotter in effect. Moving air strips away the thin insulating layer of cooler air that sits against the surface of your food, so heat transfers into it much faster at the same air temperature. Set a fan oven to the number in an American recipe and cakes brown early, cookies spread and set fast at the edges, and pastry can be dark outside before it is cooked through.
The standard American correction is 25 °F lower. The standard British correction is 20 °C lower, which is 36 °F, a bigger cut. Both are rules of thumb rather than measurements, because fan strength varies a lot between models. Use the toggle above to see both, start at 25 °F, and adjust based on what your own oven does.
The exception is anything you want dried, crisped or evenly browned across several racks. Meringues, granola, biscotti and roasted vegetables are all better with the fan on, and multi-rack cookie baking is the one job convection is unambiguously good at.
Should I reduce the baking time as well?
Start checking earlier, but do not make two big cuts at once. If you have already dropped the temperature by 25 °F, the bake should take roughly the time the recipe says, perhaps a few minutes less. Check about 5 minutes early on a 30 minute bake and about 10 minutes early on an hour long one.
Some manufacturers suggest the opposite approach: keep the recipe temperature and cut the time by around a quarter. That also works, and is often better for roasting. What does not work is doing both, which leaves you with an underbaked middle and no clue why.
Either way, judge by the food. Our baking time calculator has the internal temperatures and doneness tests that beat any clock.
Why does my oven never seem to be the right temperature?
Because it probably is not. A home oven senses its own temperature at one point, usually near the back wall, and cycles the element on and off around the target rather than holding it steady. A drift of 25 °F or more between the dial and the real air temperature is common, and older ovens drift further.
Buy a standalone oven thermometer, hang it from the middle rack, and preheat for a full 20 minutes after the ready beep, which usually sounds before the oven walls have caught up. Whatever gap you find is your oven's offset. Correct for it on the dial and note it somewhere you will see it.
Can I convert a fan temperature back to a conventional one?
Yes. Switch the toggle above to "already a fan temperature" and the tool works upward instead, adding the adjustment back on. A UK recipe that says 160 °C fan becomes roughly 180 °C, or 350 °F, or gas mark 4 in a conventional oven.
This matters more often than people expect, because British recipes increasingly give only the fan number, while American recipes almost never do. If a recipe shows two temperatures, the lower one is the fan setting.
Does rack position matter as much as temperature?
It matters more than people give it credit for. The middle rack is the default for a reason: it sits furthest from both the element below and the roof above, so heat reaches the food from all sides fairly evenly. Move a tray to the bottom third and the base browns harder, which is what you want for a pie crust and what ruins the bottoms of cookies.
If you are baking on two racks in a conventional oven, swap the trays top to bottom and turn them around halfway through. In a fan oven you can usually leave several trays alone, which is the one thing the fan buys you.
Gas mark values follow the standard 25 °F per mark scale. Fan adjustments are rules of thumb, not measurements of your oven. Last reviewed August 2026.