Electrostatic Capacitance Converter
Convert between electrostatic capacitance units — farad, kilofarad, millifarad, microfarad, nanofarad, picofarad, femtofarad, abfarad, statfarad, and coulomb/volt.
Results from this calculator are estimates provided for general informational purposes only, based on formulas, rates, and standards commonly accepted as of 2026. Figures may differ slightly from other calculators or professional sources due to rounding methods, differing assumptions, or regional regulations, and rules may change over time. Always consult a qualified professional — such as a financial advisor, healthcare provider, or other relevant specialist — before making decisions based on these results.
Result
1 F = 1000000 µF
1 Farad = 1000000 Microfarads
1 Microfarad = 1E-06 Farads
1 F in every supported unit
What is an Electrostatic Capacitance Converter?
Capacitance is the ability of an electrical system to store electric charge for a given potential difference, and its SI derived unit is the farad (F) — defined as one coulomb of stored charge per volt of applied potential. A capacitor's rating tells you how much charge it can hold at a given voltage: double the voltage and a capacitor of fixed capacitance stores twice the charge and four times the energy. Because a full farad is an enormous amount of capacitance for any physical component — a real one-farad capacitor is roughly soup-can sized — virtually every capacitor you'll ever hold in your hand is rated in a fractional SI-prefixed unit, from millifarads down to picofarads and even femtofarads for on-chip parasitics.
This converter is used whenever an engineer, hobbyist, or student needs to move between those scales — reading a capacitor's printed microfarad or picofarad rating, converting an old physics text's abfarad or statfarad figure (from the 19th-century CGS unit systems) into modern farads, or working through a charge-storage calculation expressed in the base coulomb/volt relationship. Every unit below is defined relative to the farad, so any two capacitance units — modern SI or historical CGS — convert directly and consistently.
Conversion chart: Farad to Microfarads
Conversion table
| Farad (F) | Microfarad (µF) |
|---|---|
| 0.01 F | 10000 µF |
| 0.1 F | 100000 µF |
| 1 F | 1000000 µF |
| 2 F | 2000000 µF |
| 3 F | 3000000 µF |
| 5 F | 5000000 µF |
| 10 F | 10000000 µF |
| 20 F | 20000000 µF |
| 50 F | 50000000 µF |
| 100 F | 1E+08 µF |
| 1000 F | 1E+09 µF |
Supported Units
| Unit | Symbol | In Farad |
|---|---|---|
| Farad | F | 1 F |
| Kilofarad | kF | 1000 F |
| Millifarad | mF | 0.001 F |
| Microfarad | µF | 1E-06 F |
| Nanofarad | nF | 1E-09 F |
| Picofarad | pF | 1E-12 F |
| Femtofarad | fF | 1E-15 F |
| Abfarad | abF | 1E+09 F |
| Statfarad | statF | 1.11265E-12 F |
| Coulomb/Volt | C/V | 1 F |
About These Parameters
- Value
- The capacitance value you want to convert, expressed in the "From" unit. Accepts decimals, and can represent anything from a tiny on-chip femtofarad parasitic to a supercapacitor's multi-farad rating.
- From Unit
- The unit your input value is currently measured in — a component datasheet's microfarad or picofarad rating, or a historical figure quoted in abfarads or statfarads from the older CGS unit systems.
- To Unit
- The unit you want the result converted into. Use the swap button to flip From and To instantly, handy when translating a datasheet value into a different SI-prefixed scale or back to the base farad.
How Electrostatic Capacitance Conversion Works
The Formula
Every unit here is defined by a fixed multiplier relative to the farad. To convert a value from one unit to another:
result = value × (factor of "From" unit ÷ factor of "To" unit)
For Farad → Microfarad: multiply by 1000000. For example, 1 F × 1000000 = 1000000 µF.
Why Capacitors Are Rated in Such Tiny Units
A farad is a physically enormous amount of capacitance — building one from ordinary capacitor materials would require plates with impractically large surface area or an impossibly thin dielectric gap. Real components instead need only a fraction of a farad to do their job: filtering ripple out of a power supply, coupling an audio signal between amplifier stages, or tuning a radio circuit to a specific frequency. That's why the practical range of everyday capacitors spans from a few picofarads (a tiny RF trimmer) up to a few thousand microfarads (a large electrolytic filter capacitor) — several orders of magnitude, but still nowhere close to a full farad. Only specialized supercapacitors, built with exotic high-surface-area electrode materials, actually reach into the farad range.
SI Farads vs. CGS Abfarads and Statfarads
Before the SI system unified electrical units around the farad, volt, and ampere, 19th-century physicists worked in the centimeter-gram-second (CGS) system, which split into two competing branches: the electromagnetic (emu) branch, whose capacitance unit is the abfarad (equal to a massive one billion farads), and the electrostatic (esu) branch, whose unit is the statfarad (equal to a tiny 1.1127 picofarads). The huge gap between those two CGS units — roughly 21 orders of magnitude — comes from the same speed-of-light-squared relationship that links the esu and emu systems throughout classical electromagnetism. Modern electronics almost never uses either one directly, but they still turn up when translating older theoretical physics texts into today's farad-based units.
Example
A capacitance of 1 F equals 1000000 µF. For scale, a small ceramic capacitor on a circuit board might be rated around 100 picofarads, a typical electrolytic filter capacitor in a power supply might be 1,000 microfarads, and a modern supercapacitor module can reach several farads or more.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why are capacitors almost never rated in whole farads?
A farad is an enormous unit of capacitance relative to what ordinary capacitor materials can practically achieve — a real one-farad capacitor would need to be physically large. Everyday circuits only need a small fraction of a farad to filter, couple, or tune signals, so components are rated in millifarads, microfarads, nanofarads, or picofarads instead. Only specialized supercapacitors, built for bulk energy storage, are rated in farads or higher.
Is coulomb/volt the same thing as a farad?
Yes — they're mathematically identical. The farad is defined as exactly one coulomb of stored charge per volt of potential difference (1 F = 1 C/V), so expressing a capacitance in coulombs per volt gives the exact same numeric value as expressing it in farads.
Why is the statfarad so much smaller than the abfarad?
Both come from the older centimeter-gram-second (CGS) system, but from opposite branches: the abfarad is a CGS electromagnetic (emu) unit, while the statfarad is a CGS electrostatic (esu) unit. The two branches are related by the speed of light squared, which is why the abfarad (10⁹ farads) and statfarad (about 1.1127 × 10⁻¹² farads) sit roughly 21 orders of magnitude apart despite both measuring capacitance.
What's a typical capacitance value for common electronics?
It depends heavily on the application: RF and timing circuits often use picofarad to nanofarad capacitors, general-purpose filtering and coupling capacitors commonly range from nanofarads to a few microfarads, and power-supply smoothing capacitors typically run from tens to thousands of microfarads. Farad-scale capacitance is reserved almost entirely for supercapacitors used in bulk energy storage.