Sitting desk height
26″ (66 cm)
Set the surface at or just below seated elbow height, feet flat, shoulders relaxed — the OSHA eTool baseline for neutral typing posture.
Free tool
Desk Height Calculator: Your Ideal Sitting & Standing Heights
Most desks ship at a height that fits almost nobody perfectly. The fix is simple: set the surface from your body, not from the furniture. Enter your height below and get starting numbers for sitting desk height, standing desk height, and monitor height — derived from OSHA and Cornell ergonomics guidance and published body-measurement data.
These are starting points from population averages, not a prescription. Fine-tune until your shoulders stay relaxed, your elbows sit near 90 degrees, and your wrists stay neutral.
Calculate your heights
For the standing numbers, use your height in the shoes you normally wear at the desk. For sitting, barefoot is fine — feet flat on the floor.
Standing desk height
41.5″ (105 cm)
About 2 inches below standing elbow height, so elbows rest near 90° with neutral wrists (Cornell CUErgo guidance).
Monitor top — sitting
49″ (124 cm)
Top of the screen at or just below eye level, about an arm’s length away, so your neck stays neutral (OSHA).
Monitor top — standing
65″ (165 cm)
Same rule standing: screen top at or below eye level. Raise the monitor when you raise the desk — most people forget this step.
How to use your numbers
- Set typing height first. Adjust the desk to your sitting or standing number, then check: shoulders relaxed, upper arms hanging naturally, elbows near 90 degrees, wrists straight while typing.
- Then place the monitor. Raise the screen so its top edge lands at your monitor number. If the screen sits too low on the desk, that is what monitor arms and risers are for — not a taller desk.
- Fine-tune by feel, not by the decimal. If your shoulders creep up, the desk is too high. If your wrists bend upward to reach the keyboard, it is too low. Move it half an inch and re-check.
- Recheck when anything changes. New chair, new shoes, thicker keyboard, a keyboard tray — all of these shift the right numbers slightly.
Methodology: where the numbers come from
This calculator combines two things ergonomists actually agree on: the posture rules from OSHA and Cornell, and the body-proportion ratios from published anthropometric tables. Nothing here is invented.
- Sitting desk height = 0.394 × your height − 1″. Seated elbow height (popliteal height plus elbow-rest height, 50th-percentile adult) is about 39.4% of stature in the standard civilian anthropometric tables; the desk sits just below the elbow per the OSHA Computer Workstations eTool.
- Standing desk height = 0.633 × your height − 2″. Standing elbow height is about 63.3% of stature (50th percentile, both sexes); typing posture calls for the surface roughly 2 inches below the elbow, per Cornell’s ergonomics guidance.
- Monitor top (sitting) = 0.713 × your height. Seated eye height is about 71.3% of stature; OSHA’s rule is the top of the screen at or below eye level.
- Monitor top (standing) = 0.94 × your height. Standing eye height is about 94% of stature; same at-or-below-eye-level rule.
Results are rounded to the nearest half inch. The ratios come from 50th-percentile adult data, so they are medians, not personal measurements — people with unusually long or short torsos relative to their height should adjust accordingly. The U.S. Army ANSUR II survey (6,068 participants) produces very similar standing-elbow ratios, which is a good cross-check that these numbers are in the right range.
This tool gives ergonomic starting points, not medical advice. If you have persistent pain, talk to a clinician or a qualified ergonomist rather than chasing a number.
Why standard desks fit so few people
The classic 29-inch fixed desk roughly matches the seated elbow height of a 50th-percentile adult male — and almost nobody else. Anyone shorter ends up shrugging to reach the keyboard, which is one of the most common workstation problems ergonomists see. That mismatch is the entire reason adjustable desks, keyboard trays, and footrests exist: the furniture should adapt to the body, not the other way around.
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Primary references
Posture rules from OSHA and Cornell; body-proportion ratios from published civilian anthropometric tables. These are non-affiliate references.