Youth soccer sock size chart

Soccer socks are sized by shoe size, never by age. The bands above are Soccer Village's published general chart; individual brands shift them, so check the chart for the brand you are actually buying.

Every other size chart on this site answers a question about a child: how tall, how old, how long is the foot. Socks are the exception. A soccer sock is sized by shoe size, and that is the whole rule — the sock that fits a size 3Y foot fits it whether that foot belongs to a tall eight-year-old or a small eleven-year-old.

Which should make this the easiest purchase in the bag. It is not, for one reason: the brands publish different charts, and they disagree with each other by as much as two shoe sizes on the same letter. A size Small is not a size Small.

The charts, side by side

These are the published figures from Soccer Village, a soccer specialist that lists the brands separately rather than averaging them into one table. Read down the column for the brand you are buying, not across.

A second chart that disagrees

This is worth showing rather than hiding, because it is the reason sock sizing feels unreliable. Authentic Soccer publishes an adidas-specific table that does not match the one above:

The practical consequence: do not buy a sock size from memory, and do not buy it from a chart you found for a different brand. Find your kid's current shoe size, then read the chart on the listing in front of you.

When you are between sizes, go up

This is the opposite of the rule for cleats, and the reason is the shin guard.

A soccer sock has a second job beyond covering the foot. Under Law 4 of the Laws of the Game, shinguards must be covered by the socks — so the sock has to come up over the guard and stay there for ninety minutes of running. A sock a half size too small does not fail at the foot. It fails at the top, by rolling down over the guard in the second half, and a guard that is not covered is a referee's problem as well as a comfort one.

Retailers are explicit that soccer socks are built to stretch — Authentic Soccer's own guidance is that long soccer socks stretch very far to get a tight fit and are designed to come up to the knee at the very least. A sock one band too big stretches less and still fits. A sock one band too small runs out of leg.

The exception: a sock so oversized that the heel pocket sits under the ankle will bunch inside the cleat and cause exactly the blisters you bought good socks to avoid. One band up is the rule. Two is a different problem.

A level-by-level starting point

You should still buy by the measured shoe size. But if you are ordering for a team and need a starting point, this is what the shoe sizes in our youth soccer cleat size chart work out to against the general sock chart above.

The dimension nobody checks: the calf

Sock charts are built entirely around the foot, and for a young child that is fine. From about U12 it stops being the whole story, because an over-the-calf sock sized to a 6Y foot assumes a leg that goes with a 6Y foot — and a growth spurt separates those two things for a year or more.

What that looks like in practice: the foot fits, the sock will not stay up, and the parent concludes the sock is bad. It is the wrong size for the leg. If your player is tall for their shoe size, go up a band and accept a slightly loose foot, because the alternative is a sock that lives at the top of the shin guard rather than over it.

Sock cuffs also lose elasticity faster than the rest of the sock does, so a pair that held position in September may not in March. That is a wear problem, not a sizing one, and the fix is a new pair rather than a bigger one.

Grip socks are sized differently, and mostly not for kids

Grip socks have become normal at the older end of youth soccer, and the sizing question changes completely when you buy one.

The TRUsox 3.0 crew — the model most often asked about — is listed at Soccer Village in Small, Medium, Large and Extra Large, with no junior or kids size in the run at all. TRUsox's own range is built around its IN//EX grip pads, which only work if the sock is tight enough to hold the foot, so an oversized grip sock is not a grip sock. For most players below roughly U12, the honest answer is that the product does not come in their size.

Whether they are worth it at all once they do fit is a separate question, and are grip socks worth it answers it properly.

How many pairs, and what size to buy spares in

Three pairs is the working number for a season: one in the wash, one in the bag, one on the child. Clubs that specify a match sock usually allow a plain training sock for practice, which is where the cheap pairs go.

One seasonal note: a thicker winter sock is not the fix for a cold player, because the sock has to fit inside a cleat that was sized with a normal sock in it. The warmth goes elsewhere — best youth soccer cold weather gear for the layers and best cold weather soccer gloves for kids for the hands, which is the complaint you will actually hear.

Do not stock up a size ahead. Socks are the one item where buying for next season is tempting and pointless — the cuff elastic degrades in storage, they are cheap enough that the saving is small, and a child's shoe size at this age moves far enough in a year that the guess is usually wrong anyway.

Sizing mistakes that keep happening

• Buying by age. Every sock chart on this page is keyed to shoe size. Age appears on none of them, and a brand that advertises socks 'for ages 8–10' is guessing at the foot.
• Reusing a brand's letter across brands. A Nike Medium is a kids' 5Y–7Y. A PUMA Medium is a men's 5–8. Same letter, different product.
• Sizing down for a snug fit. The sock has to clear the shin guard. A tight foot and a short leg is the wrong trade.
• Assuming the team sock is the only sock. Most clubs specify a match sock and nothing else, so training socks are your choice — and that is where to put the money you saved.
• Washing hot and tumble drying. The quickest way to turn a correctly sized sock into one that slides down. Elastic and heat do not mix, and grip-sock pads stiffen outright.