Metrication in the United States

Common card · No. 225557

Metrication in the United States is the gradual and still incomplete adoption of the International System of Units (SI). The metric system has been legal in trade since the Metric Act of 1866, the United States was an original signatory of the Metre Convention in 1875, and since the Mendenhall Order of 1893 customary units have been defined in terms of metric standards. Since 2023, the foot has had a single definition of exactly 0.3048 meters, following the retirement of the U.S. survey foot. Federal policy has favored conversion since the Metric Conversion Act of 1975, which created the United States Metric Board to coordinate a voluntary changeover. Public resistance and the Board's lack of authority stalled the effort, and it was abolished in 1982. The Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988 made the metric system the "preferred system of weights and measures for United States trade and commerce", and Executive Order 12770 (1991) directed federal agencies to use it in procurement...

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