The short answer
A 70 kg person walking at a brisk 5.5 km/h pace burns roughly 170 calories in 30 minutes (MET 4.8). Lighter walkers burn less, faster walkers burn more, and an incline raises the number further. The chart and calculator below break it down by your exact weight, pace, and time.
Walking is the most sustainable form of exercise there is. It is low-impact, needs no kit, and you can do it every day without wrecking your knees or your motivation. That is the whole appeal: it is not the biggest calorie burner, but it is the one you will still be doing next year. The trade-off is that "calories burned walking" is not a single number. It scales with three things: how much you weigh, how fast you walk, and how long you keep going.
The science behind the numbers is the MET (metabolic equivalent). Each pace has a MET value from the 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities, and the formula is simple: calories = MET x your weight in kilograms x hours. We did that math for every common weight and pace below.
How many calories does walking burn?
Pick the row for your walk time and the column for your weight. Easy is around 3 to 4 km/h (MET 3), moderate around 5.5 km/h (MET 4.8), and fast or brisk around 7 km/h (MET 6.5). Walking sits well below running, which carries a MET of 8.5 or higher, so a walk burns less per minute. What it gives back is sustainability: you can walk far longer, far more often, with none of the impact.
Why your weight matters
Walking is a weight-bearing activity, so the heavier you are, the more energy it takes to move you the same distance. That is why every row in the table rises as you move right across the weight columns. A 100 kg walker burns roughly twice the calories of a 55 kg walker at the same pace and time, with no extra effort, simply because there is more mass to carry. It is also why two people on the same daily walk lose weight at different rates.
Why pace and incline change the number
Walking faster recruits more muscle and demands more oxygen per minute, which pushes the MET value up: an easy stroll near 3 MET becomes a brisk 4.8 MET, and a fast 7 km/h pace reaches roughly 6.5 MET. Incline changes the number even more sharply. Lifting your body weight uphill costs extra energy on every step, so a moderate walk up a hill can burn more than a fast walk on the flat. If you want more burn without more time, add a gradient before you add speed.
How accurate are these numbers?
MET-based estimates are a solid baseline, but they are an average across many people. Your real burn shifts with fitness, terrain, surface, wind, and walking economy. Step counters are worth a specific warning: they tend to overestimate calories, sometimes by 15 to 30 percent, because they translate raw steps into energy with a generic formula and cannot see your real effort. Treat the chart and any wearable figure as a close estimate, not a lab measurement. For tracking that actually moves the needle, consistency beats precision: logging every walk roughly right tells you far more over a month than chasing a perfect single number.
Calories burned vs calories eaten
Knowing you burned 170 calories on a walk is only half the picture. What you do with that number is what changes your weight. This matters more for walking than for almost any other activity, because a walk is so easy to out-eat: a 30-minute brisk walk burns around 170 calories, and a single snack can wipe that out in two minutes. The useful move is to connect the burn to your intake for the day, which is exactly the gap a coach fills.
Log your walks without the math
Reading a chart is one thing. Tracking every walk and every meal, day after day, is where most people give up. With CalAlly you say "I walked 40 minutes this morning" and it logs the activity, estimates the burn, and folds it into your daily numbers. The built in AI nutrition coach then tells you what to eat so a walk's modest burn is not erased before lunch. See what CalAlly is, the best calorie tracker for walkers, or our best calorie tracker apps roundup.
