The average walking speed for most adults is 3 to 4 miles per hour (4.8-6.4 km/h), though this varies by age, sex, and fitness level. In this guide we break down average walking speed data with comparison tables so you can see how your pace stacks up — plus how long it should take to walk a mile at different speeds.
But to reap these benefits, how fast should you walk during your workouts? Should you walk at an easy, moderate-intensity, or brisk walking pace?
If you’re trying to determine how fast you should walk during your workouts and how you stack up to your peers, it can be helpful to know the average walking speeds by age and sex.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC),1U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2018). Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, 2nd edition. In health.gov (pp. 1–118). https://health.gov/sites/default/files/2019-09/Physical_Activity_Guidelines_2nd_edition.pdf, the average walking speed for adults is between 2.5 and 4 miles per hour.
Where you fall within this range will depend on various factors, so let’s check them out!
The Honest Truth About “Average” Walking Speed (And Why Yours Probably Shouldn’t Match It)
Most articles on this topic hand you one number — around 3 mph for a healthy adult — and call it a day. That number is not wrong, but it is misleading for three reasons we’ll work through before the rest of this article, because if you don’t know them you’ll use the wrong pace for the wrong purpose and wonder why your walks aren’t doing what you thought they would.
1. Your walking speed is a vital sign, not a statistic
Gait speed is one of the most studied and predictive measurements in clinical geriatrics. Studenski and colleagues pooled nine cohort studies covering 34,485 adults aged 65+ and found gait speed predicted 10-year survival with accuracy comparable to — and in some comparisons better than — a combined model of chronological age, sex, body mass index, systolic blood pressure, chronic conditions, smoking history, and hospitalisation history (Studenski et al., JAMA, 2011). A similarly large analysis by Stamatakis et al. (British Journal of Sports Medicine, 2018) found that adults reporting a “slow” walking pace had substantially higher cardiovascular mortality than “average” pace walkers, independent of their total weekly physical activity. The practical takeaway: the difference between walking at 2.5 mph and 3.2 mph is not cosmetic. It is one of the most reliable cheap signals we have for underlying cardiorespiratory and neuromuscular health.
2. “Average” hides a 3× spread you care about
The often-quoted “3 mph” is a simple mean of a very wide distribution. Bohannon and Williams Andrews’ meta-analysis (Physiotherapy, 2011) pooled data from 41 studies and reported comfortable walking speeds ranging from roughly 1.9 mph in the slowest healthy older female cohorts to 3.6 mph in the fastest healthy younger male cohorts — and maximal walking speeds that cleared 5 mph. The “healthy adult average” also hides the part that matters if you are using walking as exercise: the gap between your comfortable walking pace and your brisk pace. The CDC’s definition of moderate-intensity physical activity is a brisk pace of roughly 3 mph or more, or specifically one that elevates heart rate and breathing (CDC, Physical Activity for a Healthy Weight). If your comfortable speed already sits at 3 mph, then hitting the moderate-intensity threshold means you need to push to roughly 3.5–4 mph, not stroll.
3. Speed is a side effect of purpose, not a target
Walking to decompress, walking to hit a calorie number, and walking as Zone 2 cardio for endurance are three different prescriptions, and “the average” is the right pace for none of them. A rough pace-by-purpose guide:
- Recovery / NEAT / stress-reduction walk: 2.5–3.0 mph. Nasal breathing. Conversational.
- Brisk walk / moderate cardio (CDC threshold): 3.0–3.8 mph. Breathing is elevated but sentences still come out whole.
- Power walk / Zone 2 substitute: 3.8–4.5 mph. Arm swing engaged. Short phrases only.
- Walk-run interval pace: 4.5 mph+. At this point most people unconsciously break into a jog, which is a fine sign that the interval is working.
Once you know which of those four you are actually trying to do, the “is my walking speed normal?” question is almost always the wrong one to ask. See our guides to 10,000 steps a day, 20,000 steps a day, and 5,000 steps a day for how walking volume translates into time and cardiometabolic outcomes at each speed band, and our pace charts hub if you want to map mph into min/mile or min/km for treadmill or GPS tracking.
When hitting the average is actually a red flag
For a healthy adult under 65, comfortably walking at 2.5 mph — the lower end of the commonly quoted “average” range — is slow enough that it often correlates with deconditioning, chronic pain, or undertreated cardiovascular risk, not healthy normalcy. The Stamatakis 2018 analysis showed self-reported “slow” walkers had 1.8× to 2.4× the all-cause cardiovascular mortality of “average” walkers across eleven pooled UK cohorts. If your comfortable walking speed sits at or below the population average and you are under 65 without an obvious orthopaedic limiter, the most productive next step is not to read another article about walking speed — it is to find out why, either with a physical-activity readiness assessment from your GP or by adding a structured walking or walk-run progression and watching how fast your comfortable pace climbs over 8–12 weeks. (Two to three weeks of consistent brisk walking is usually enough to shift a comfortable pace by 0.3–0.5 mph.)
With that context in place, here’s what the population data actually looks like.
How Long Does It Take The Average Person To Walk One Mile?
Let’s break down the 2.5 – 4-mile per hour average human walking speed range to see how that correlates to the time an average person spends walking a mile.
At the low end of these average walking speeds, it would take 24 minutes to walk a mile. For most people, this is an easy, conversational walking speed.
On the other end of the spectrum, walking at a brisk speed of 4.0 miles per hour would take 15 minutes to walk one mile.
A study2Rasmussen, L. J. H., Caspi, A., Ambler, A., Broadbent, J. M., Cohen, H. J., d’Arbeloff, T., Elliott, M., Hancox, R. J., Harrington, H., Hogan, S., Houts, R., Ireland, D., Knodt, A. R., Meredith-Jones, K., Morey, M. C., Morrison, L., Poulton, R., Ramrakha, S., Richmond-Rakerd, L., & Sison, M. L. (2019). Association of Neurocognitive and Physical Function With Gait Speed in Midlife. JAMA Network Open, 2(10), e1913123. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2019.13123 of 997 middle-aged walkers (aged 45 years old) found that the average walking speeds were 1.30 m/s for usual walking gait and 1.99 m/s for maximum gait.
Using the conversion that one mile equals 1609 meters, the average “usual” walking speed works out to walking one mile in 20.6 minutes, while walking a mile at the average maximum walking speed would take 13.48 minutes.
What Is the Average Walking Speed Based On Age?
Studies have shown that average walking speed decreases with age.
There are many reasons as to3American College of Sports Medicine Position Stand. Exercise and physical activity for older adults. (1998). Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 30(6), 992–1008. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9624662/ why people tend to walk slower as they age, such as the natural decrease in muscle mass (age-related sarcopenia), a loss of muscle strength, a decrease in aerobic capacity (VO2 max), and cardiovascular endurance.
One relatively recent study looked at the impact of age on various factors of walking. The authors shared data about the average walking speed based on age. The table below is an adaptation of that data.
Note that the average walking speed for the oldest age group varied significantly between different studies, so we took the average of the findings.
| Age | Kilometers per hour (km/h) | Miles per hour (mph) | Walking Pace min/mile |
| <30 | 4.82 km/h | 3 mph | 20:00 |
| 30–39 | 4.54 km/h | 2.8 mph | 21:24 |
| 40–49 | 4.54 km/h | 2.8 mph | 21:24 |
| 50–59 | 4.43 km/h | 2.75 mph | 21:40 |
| >60 | 4.34 km/h | 2.7 mph | 22:13 |
| >65 | 2.88 km/h | 1.8 mph | 33:30 |
What Is the Average Walking Speed By Age and Sex?
Biological sex can also influence average walking speed. Men tend to walk faster than women, likely due to longer legs, more muscle mass, and a higher average aerobic fitness.
Studies that have investigated the combined effects of sex and age on walking speed have found that the average walking speed for women is slower than that for men when matched by age.
According to one study,4Schimpl, M., Moore, C., Lederer, C., Neuhaus, A., Sambrook, J., Danesh, J., Ouwehand, W., & Daumer, M. (2011). Association between Walking Speed and Age in Healthy, Free-Living Individuals Using Mobile Accelerometry—A Cross-Sectional Study. PLoS ONE, 6(8), e23299. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0023299 the average walking speeds based on age and sex are as follows:
| Age | Average Walking Speed for Women (mph) | Average Walking Speed for Men (mph) |
| 20-29 | 3.0 | 3.4 |
| 30-39 | 3.0 | 3.2 |
| 40-49 | 3.11 | 3.2 |
| 50-59 | 2.93 | 3.2 |
| 60-69 | 2.77 | 3.0 |
| 70-79 | 2.53 | 2.82 |
| 80-89 | 2.1 | 2.17 |
Based on these walking speeds, we can calculate how long it takes on average to walk a mile based on age and sex, as shown below:
| Age | How Long Does It Take to Walk a Mile for Women? (minutes: seconds) | How Long Does It Take to Walk a Mile for Men? (minutes: seconds) |
| 20-29 | 20:00 | 17:39 |
| 30-39 | 20:00 | 18:45 |
| 40-49 | 19:17 | 18:45 |
| 50-59 | 20:28 | 18:45 |
| 60-69 | 21:40 | 20:00 |
| 70-79 | 23:43 | 21:16 |
| 80-89 | 28:31 | 27:39 |
What Factors Can Affect Average Walking Speed?
In addition to age and sex, other factors can affect your average walking speed.
Most people have an average comfortable walking speed and an average maximum or brisk walking speed. However, even within these two different extremes for a given individual, there is usually some day-to-day variability in average walking pace.
Here are some additional factors that can affect your average walking speed either on a day-to-day basis for a given individual or between two different individuals of the same age and sex:
#1: Fitness Level
Your fitness level will significantly impact your average walking speed, particularly over longer-distance walks.
The fitter you are, the faster you can walk, and the better you will be to maintain your walking speed for longer walks without slowing down.
#2: Body Weight and Composition
Individuals who are overweight or obese have more body mass to move, so it is more demanding on the cardiovascular and musculoskeletal systems to transport the body from point A to point B.
This does not mean that heavier individuals will definitely walk slower than leaner individuals, but having a higher body fat percentage can potentially decrease your average walking speed, particularly at a given effort level.
#3: Effort Level
A primary factor affecting your average walking speed is the effort or intensity level with which you are trying to walk. Are you walking comfortably or power walking and pushing the pace as much as possible?
Pumping up that heart rate and walking at a fast pace will result in faster pace walking, where walking at an easy, normal walking speed will result in slower walking.
#4: Terrain
The terrain you are walking on can definitely affect your average walking speed.
Particularly if you are walking up an incline, such as hiking up a mountain or doing an incline treadmill walk, the metabolic cost of your walking workout will be significantly higher.
Therefore, your resultant average walking speed will likely be slower unless you are purposely exerting significantly more effort for a vigorous workout.
Additionally, walking on uneven, challenging terrain such as technical hiking trails, soft sand, or slippery and snowy roads can slow your average walking pace because you have to watch your footing and navigate obstacles.
#5: Environmental Conditions
Extreme weather conditions can affect walking speed, where your average speed will likely decrease.
For example, if it is extremely hot and humid outside, your body has to work harder to keep you cool, and you are more likely to experience significant cardiac drift over long-distance walks. This can slow your average walking speed.
Walking in the wind, cold, rain, sleet, and snow can have similar effects because poor visibility, slippery footing, walking into a headwind, or trying to maintain your core body temperature in freezing conditions are all more taxing on the body than trying to walk on a comfortable dry day.
#6: Carrying an External Load
If you are carrying a heavy pack or some other type of load or wearing a weighted vest to increase the intensity of your workouts, it is normal to see a drop in your average walking speed because your muscles have to work harder to move your heavier body.
If you would like to walk faster, the best thing you can do is improve your cardiovascular fitness and endurance by training. Walk consistently, gradually building up your stamina and incorporating intervals of brisk walking to improve your speed.
Try to walk with good form, using a powerful arm swing to drive your legs forward and keep your cadence quick and light.
Moreover, focus on pushing yourself and pushing the pace during your walks. Try listening to upbeat music or using a metronome app to support a faster-walking cadence.
Avoid distractions like checking your phone.
Using a fitness watch or app to track your pace and distance can also be helpful. A pedometer will just count your steps. More data can increase your motivation to walk faster and help you track your progress.
How does your average walking speed compare to others of your age and sex? Remeber, there are plenty benefits of walking that can contribute to your overall health.
Take a look at this next guide to see what they are:
