A medium apple has about 95 calories. That’s based on a typical apple weighing around 182 grams (about 6.4 ounces), eaten raw with the skin on. Size matters more than variety when it comes to calorie count, so the biggest variable is simply how large your apple is.
Calories by Apple Size
Apple sizes aren’t standardized at the grocery store, but nutrition databases use diameter and weight to define small, medium, and large. A small apple (roughly 6.5 cm or 2.5 inches across) contains about 55 calories. A medium apple (around 7 cm or 3 inches) comes in at 72 to 95 calories depending on the variety and exact weight. A large apple (8.5 cm or about 3.3 inches) can reach 110 calories or more.
Most apples you grab at the supermarket fall in the medium-to-large range, so 80 to 100 calories is a reasonable estimate for a typical piece of fruit. If you’re tracking calories closely, weighing your apple gives you a more accurate number: raw apple with skin runs about 52 calories per 100 grams.
How Varieties Compare
Sweeter apples like Fuji and Gala carry slightly more sugar than tart varieties like Granny Smith, but the calorie difference is surprisingly small. A medium Granny Smith, for instance, has about 72 calories. A similarly sized Fuji or Honeycrisp might land a few calories higher because of its extra sugar content, but the gap between any two varieties at the same size is rarely more than 10 to 15 calories. Choosing a tart apple over a sweet one won’t meaningfully change your daily intake.
What Else Is in an Apple
Nearly all the calories in an apple come from carbohydrates. A medium apple contains roughly 25 grams of carbs, of which about 19 grams are natural sugars (a mix of fructose, glucose, and sucrose) and 4.4 grams are fiber. Fat and protein are negligible, each under half a gram. The calorie breakdown works out to about 96% carbohydrate, 3% fat, and 2% protein.
That 4.4 grams of fiber is worth noting. It puts a single apple at roughly 15 to 18% of most adults’ daily fiber target. Most of that fiber lives in and just beneath the skin, so peeling your apple cuts the fiber content significantly. The fiber is also part of why apples feel more filling than their calorie count might suggest.
Fresh Apples vs. Dried and Processed
A fresh apple is about 86% water by weight, which keeps its calorie density low. Remove that water and the numbers change dramatically. Dried apple rings contain roughly 240 calories per 100 grams, nearly five times the calorie density of fresh apple. Sugar concentration jumps accordingly, from about 10 grams per 100 grams of fresh fruit to over 50 grams in the same weight of dried fruit. A small bag of dried apple chips can easily match the calories of two or three whole apples while feeling much less satisfying.
Apple juice tells a similar story. A cup of unsweetened apple juice has about 114 calories, comparable to a whole apple, but without the fiber and with far less volume to fill your stomach.
Why Apples Feel Filling for Their Calories
For a 95-calorie snack, apples punch above their weight in terms of satiety. Their combination of water, fiber, and the physical act of chewing slows down eating and sends stronger fullness signals than the same calories in liquid or pureed form. Research on satiety found that apple slices lowered the amount of food eaten at a subsequent meal more than apple puree or apple juice, even when all three were matched for weight, calories, fiber, and energy density. The intact structure of the fruit appears to matter on its own.
This makes whole apples a particularly useful snack if you’re managing your weight. The fiber slows digestion, the water adds volume, and the chewing adds time, all of which help you feel full longer than a processed snack with the same calorie count.
Quick Calorie Reference
- Small apple (about 150g): 55 to 80 calories
- Medium apple (about 182g): 72 to 95 calories
- Large apple (about 240g): 110 to 125 calories
- Per 100 grams, raw with skin: 52 calories
- Dried apple, per 100g: approximately 240 calories