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Banana Calories: Small, Medium and Large

November 13, 2026 · Viral Tandel

Banana calories is one of those questions where the fruit itself is not the variable. Size is. A short banana and a long one are not close to the same number, and USDA's own data gives you a way to account for that instead of defaulting to one figure for every banana you eat.

Key takeaways

• USDA's reference whole banana (126 g) comes to 122 kcal, 0.9 g protein, 28.6 g carbs and 0.4 g fat.
• USDA also publishes a per-linear-inch figure, about 15 g and 15 kcal per inch, which is the most direct way to account for a banana that is shorter or longer than average.
• A 6 inch banana and an 8 inch banana can differ by roughly 30 kcal, entirely from length.
• Ripeness is not covered by a separate figure in this site's sources, only raw banana generally.
• Toppings, nut butter, honey, chocolate, are not included in any of the figures here and should be logged as their own items.

Banana calories: USDA's own reference

USDA's own "1 banana" reference weighs 126 g, which is on the longer side of what most people picture when they think of "a banana." If the one on your counter is noticeably shorter, thinner, or still partly green, treating it as automatically equal to this reference will overstate its calories.

Sizing a banana by length

USDA also publishes a per-linear-inch figure for banana: about 15 g and roughly 15 kcal per inch. That is not a separate small, medium and large weight the way some other foods on this site have; it is a rate you can apply to the length of the banana actually in front of you, which is arguably more useful for a fruit as variable in size as this one.

These figures are arithmetic built directly on USDA's published per-inch rate, not independently published small, medium and large weights, so treat them as a close working estimate rather than an exact one. Still, the pattern is clear enough to matter: a 6 inch banana and USDA's own longer reference banana differ by about 35 kcal, which is a real gap for a food most people log without thinking twice about its size.

Why size beats almost everything else here

A banana does not get cooked, breaded, or combined with a sauce the way most of the dishes on this site do. There is no tempering to miss, no oil absorbed in a pan. That actually makes size the dominant variable by a wide margin, more than ripeness, more than variety. A short banana eaten whole and a long one eaten whole are the same food prepared the same way; they just are not the same weight.

This is worth keeping in mind next to a food like avocado calories, where size again matters more than most people expect, though for a different reason: avocados vary in weight for a given size in a way bananas, with their more predictable length-to-weight relationship, generally do not.

Logging bananas accurately

If you have a kitchen scale, weigh the banana peeled and use the 100 g figure to scale exactly. If you do not, estimating length against something familiar, the width of your hand, the length of your phone, and using the per-inch figure above gets you closer than assuming every banana is the reference size.

Whatever you eat it with matters too. A banana on its own is a fairly clean number; a banana sliced into a bowl with granola, nut butter or honey stacks calories from each of those separately, and none of them is included in the figures on this page. For a related everyday protein commonly eaten alongside it at breakfast, see egg calories.

For the wider set of everyday staples sourced the same way, see the everyday foods calories guide and the everyday breakfast foods calories guide. If you would rather skip the estimating altogether, log it in KalTrack and let a photo do the sizing for you, then correct it if the length looks off.

This is general information about tracking food, not medical advice. If you are managing a health condition or working to a clinical target, talk to your doctor or a registered dietitian before changing how you eat.