Daily Sugar Intake Calculator

Daily sugar intake recommendations come from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the American Heart Association (AHA).

WHO guidelines recommend that free sugars should be less than 10% of total daily energy intake.
For additional health benefits, they suggest reducing this to below 5%. Free sugars are added sugars plus the sugar in fruit juice.

AHA recommendations for added sugar:

• Men: No more than 36 grams (9 teaspoons) per day
• Women: No more than 25 grams (6 teaspoons) per day
• Children (2-18): No more than 25 grams (6 teaspoons) per day
• Children under 2: No added sugar at all

The 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, published in January 2026, are stricter again: no more than 10 g of added sugar in a meal, and none at all for young children.

Activity level affects total calorie needs, which in turn affects the absolute sugar limit.
More active people burn more calories, so their 10% threshold is slightly higher in absolute terms.
However, the AHA maximums still apply as upper bounds.

Natural sugars found in whole fruits, vegetables, and plain dairy are not counted as “added sugars.”
The limits apply only to sugars added during processing, cooking, or at the table.

Common high-sugar foods and their sugar content:

• One can of soda: ~39g of sugar
• One tablespoon of ketchup: ~4g of sugar
• One flavored yogurt cup: ~19g of sugar
• One tablespoon of honey: ~17g of sugar

How the calorie estimate works

The WHO figures are a percentage of your total energy intake, so the calculator needs a calorie estimate before it can turn 10% into grams. It uses a base figure by age band and sex, then multiplies by activity: no change if sedentary, 15% more if moderately active, 30% more if very active. The adjustment applies at every age, children included.

Where the WHO percentage and the AHA gram figure disagree, the calculator takes the stricter of the two. For most adult men that means the AHA 36 g cap binds, because 10% of 2,500 calories is 62 g.

If you already know your calorie intake, the Daily Sugar Limit Calculator takes it directly and can tighten the limit for weight loss or blood-sugar control. This page estimates the calories for you and checks what you actually ate against the result.

Reading a label

Nutrition labels in the US and UK now separate “total sugars” from “added sugars”, and only the second line is what these limits are about. A level teaspoon of granulated sugar weighs about 4.2 g, which is the figure the calculator divides by. Four is close enough in your head: a 39 g can of soda is roughly nine teaspoons.

Staying within these limits reduces the risk of obesity, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease.