How many calories are in a banana?

A medium banana has about 105 calories. That's the short answer, and it's a solid one — it comes straight from the USDA value of 89 kcal per 100 g and a typical medium fruit of 118 g without peel. But bananas vary in size more than almost any fruit people log daily, and there's a persistent myth about ripeness that's worth killing with numbers.

The USDA baseline

USDA FoodData Central lists raw banana at 89 kcal per 100 g, with 1.1 g of protein, 0.3 g of fat and about 23 g of carbohydrate. That's the row calorie.one matches when you log a banana — the per-100 g value is fixed; the only question is how many grams your banana actually is.

For comparison, that makes banana one of the denser common fruits: an apple runs around 52–63 kcal per 100 g depending on variety. Bananas carry less water and more starch, which is also why they're the classic pre-run snack.

Per banana, by size

Peeled weights and the resulting calories, using standard produce sizing:

Two practical notes. First, the peel is roughly a third of the whole fruit's weight, so if you weigh an unpeeled banana at 180 g, you're eating about 118 g of it — a medium. Weighing with peel and logging that number overstates the calories by ~50%. Second, the spread from small to extra large is about 63 kcal. That's not nothing, but it's also not worth agonizing over for one banana a day; it matters if bananas are a multiple-times-daily staple.

Does a ripe banana have more calories?

You've probably heard that ripe bananas are "more sugary" and therefore more caloric. Half right, and the half that's right doesn't matter.

As a banana ripens, enzymes convert its starch into sugars — a green banana can be mostly starch, a heavily spotted one mostly sugar. So yes, a ripe banana genuinely tastes sweeter and contains more sugar. But starch and sugar are both carbohydrate at roughly 4 kcal per gram. The conversion rearranges the carbohydrate; it doesn't add any. A 118 g banana is about 105 kcal green, yellow or spotted. (The banana does lose a little water as it ripens, which can nudge the per-100 g density up slightly — but the fruit is also lighter, so the per-banana total barely moves.)

The one place ripeness does matter is digestion speed: the resistant starch in greener bananas digests more slowly and feeds gut bacteria rather than being fully absorbed, so a green banana has a gentler blood-sugar effect. For the calorie log, though, one banana is one banana.

Banana in other forms

Processing changes the math dramatically, mostly by removing water:

• Dried banana / banana powder: 346 kcal per 100 g in the USDA data — nearly four times the fresh density.
• Banana chips: 519 kcal per 100 g, because they're fried; a modest 40 g handful is ~208 kcal, double a fresh medium banana.
• Banana in a smoothie: same calories as the fresh fruit, but drunk in seconds. The banana isn't the trap; the three other things blended with it are.

Logging bananas without a scale

A banana is one of the few foods where eyeballing works fine: pick the size class from the table above and you'll be within 15–20 kcal. When you log "a banana" in calorie.one, the AI assumes a medium (~118 g peeled) and matches the USDA row "Bananas, raw" at 89 kcal per 100 g — you'll see that exact match and the gram estimate as its own line in the meal breakdown, and if yours was a monster from the farmers' market, you edit the grams on that line and the total recomputes from the same database row. The AI never invents the per-100 g number; that's the methodology in one sentence.

And if you're wondering how a banana fits your day: against a typical 2,000 kcal target (see how many calories you need per day, or get your own number from the calorie calculator), a medium banana is about 5% — one of the cheapest sweet things you can log.

FAQ

How many calories are in a banana without the peel?

The calories above are already for the peeled fruit — a medium banana is about 118 g without peel and about 105 kcal. If you weigh the banana with its peel, subtract roughly a third of the weight before applying the 89 kcal per 100 g.

How many calories are in a large banana?

About 121 kcal for a large banana (20–23 cm, ~136 g peeled), and about 135 for an extra-large one over 23 cm.

How many calories are in 2 bananas?

About 210 kcal for two medium bananas, with roughly 46 g of carbohydrate. Two small ones are about 180 kcal.

How many calories are in a banana per gram?

0.89 kcal per gram of peeled banana (89 kcal per 100 g, USDA "Bananas, raw"). So a 150 g banana is about 134 kcal.

Are bananas high in calories or sugar?

A medium banana carries about 14 g of sugar and 105 kcal — more than an apple of the same weight, but still a low-calorie food per gram and with 3 g of fiber. For calorie tracking, one banana is a 5% slice of a 2,000 kcal day.