Walking a mile burns roughly 60 to 100 calories for most people, while running a mile burns about 80 to 140 calories. The exact number depends on your body weight, your speed, and the surface you’re moving on. A 155-pound person walking at a brisk 3.5 mph pace burns around 80 calories per mile, while the same person running a 10-minute mile burns about 110 calories.
Why Body Weight Matters Most
Your body weight is the single biggest factor in how many calories you burn per mile. Moving a heavier body over the same distance requires more energy, plain and simple. A 180-pound person walking a mile burns roughly 30% more calories than a 130-pound person covering the same distance at the same speed. This holds true for running as well.
The standard formula works like this: every activity has an intensity rating called a MET value (metabolic equivalent of task), which represents how many times harder your body works compared to sitting still. To estimate calories burned per minute, multiply the MET value by your weight in kilograms, then divide by 200. From there, multiply by the number of minutes it takes to finish the mile.
Calories Burned Walking One Mile
Walking speeds change the calorie count per mile less dramatically than most people expect. Walking slowly at 2.0 mph has a MET value of 2.8, but it takes 30 minutes to cover the mile. Walking briskly at 3.5 mph has a higher MET value of 4.3, but you finish the mile in about 17 minutes. The shorter time partially offsets the higher intensity, which is why walking calorie burn per mile stays in a relatively tight range regardless of pace.
Here’s what a 155-pound person (70 kg) burns walking one mile on a flat, firm surface at different speeds:
- 2.0 mph (30-minute mile): roughly 74 calories
- 3.0 mph (20-minute mile): roughly 77 calories
- 3.5 mph (17-minute mile): roughly 80 calories
- 4.0 mph (15-minute mile): roughly 83 calories
- 4.5 mph (13.3-minute mile): roughly 82 calories
The consistency here is striking. Whether you stroll or power walk, you’re burning somewhere around 75 to 85 calories per mile at this weight. A 200-pound person would burn closer to 100 to 110 calories per mile across those same speeds.
Calories Burned Running One Mile
Running burns more calories per mile than walking, but not by as much as people assume. The bigger difference shows up in calories per hour, since you cover miles much faster. Per mile, running costs your body roughly 20% to 40% more energy than walking at the same body weight.
For a 155-pound person running on flat ground:
- 5 mph / 12-minute mile: roughly 110 calories
- 6 mph / 10-minute mile: roughly 108 calories
- 7 mph / 8.5-minute mile: roughly 110 calories
- 8 mph / 7.5-minute mile: roughly 110 calories
- 9 mph / 6.5-minute mile: roughly 112 calories
- 10 mph / 6-minute mile: roughly 121 calories
Running produces an even flatter calorie-per-mile curve than walking. Going faster increases the intensity, but you spend less time covering the distance. The result: running a mile burns roughly 100 to 120 calories for a 155-pound person regardless of pace. A 130-pound runner would see numbers closer to 85 to 100, while a 200-pound runner would be in the 130 to 155 range.
Walking vs. Running: Which Burns More?
Running wins on a per-mile basis, but the margin is smaller than the per-hour comparison suggests. For a 155-pound person, running a mile burns about 30 to 35 more calories than walking the same mile. The real advantage of running is time efficiency. You can cover three miles in 30 minutes of running versus one and a half miles in 30 minutes of walking, roughly doubling your total calorie expenditure in the same workout window.
If your primary goal is burning calories and you have limited time, running is the clear winner. If you have more time and prefer walking, you can close the gap by simply covering more miles. Walking three miles burns more total calories than running one mile at any speed.
Gross vs. Net Calories
The numbers above are “gross” calories, meaning they include everything your body burns during that time period, including what you would have burned just sitting on the couch. If you want to know how many extra calories the exercise added to your day, you need to subtract your resting burn.
At rest, your body burns roughly 1 calorie per minute (slightly more or less depending on your size). A 20-minute walk would have cost you about 20 calories even if you’d stayed seated. Subtract that from 80 gross calories and you get about 60 net calories for the mile. For a 10-minute running mile, subtract about 10 resting calories from 110 gross, leaving roughly 100 net calories. The net difference between walking and running a mile is a bit larger than the gross numbers suggest, since running takes less time and therefore “wastes” fewer minutes on baseline metabolism.
How Terrain Changes the Numbers
All the estimates above assume a flat, firm surface like pavement or a treadmill. Change the terrain and the calorie cost shifts noticeably.
Walking on sand is especially demanding. Research on energy expenditure across surfaces found that walking on sand costs about 1.8 times the energy of walking on a hard surface at speeds above roughly 2 mph. That means a mile on a sandy beach could burn around 140 to 150 calories instead of 80 for a 155-pound person. Running on sand is less extreme but still adds about 20% to the energy cost per mile compared to pavement.
Hills also increase calorie burn substantially. Walking or running uphill at even a modest grade can raise energy expenditure by 30% to 50% or more, depending on the steepness. Going downhill reduces the cost slightly compared to flat ground, though your muscles still work hard to control the descent.
A Quick Way to Estimate Your Own Burn
For a rough personal estimate without a calculator, use these rules of thumb. Walking a mile burns approximately 0.5 calories per pound of body weight. Running a mile burns approximately 0.7 calories per pound. So a 160-pound person walking a mile burns about 80 calories, and running a mile burns about 112 calories. These approximations hold well for flat ground at moderate speeds and get you within 10% to 15% of the more precise MET-based calculations.
Fitness trackers and smartwatches use your heart rate and weight to refine these estimates further, but they still carry error margins of 10% to 30% depending on the device. The per-pound shortcut is just as reliable for everyday planning.