Swim Time Converter: SCY, SCM & LCM
Convert a swim time between short course yards, short course meters and long course meters. Pick the method your meet uses — club, NCAA, high school, USA Swimming or your own multiplier — and see exactly how every number was calculated.
Type digits only if you like — 10456 becomes 1:04.56.
Hy-Tek’s default "Age Group" factors — what most club meet software uses for seed times. Works for every event and course.
Short course meters (SCM)
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Long course meters (LCM)
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How the methods compare for this swim
| Method | SCM | LCM |
|---|---|---|
| Age Group (Hy-Tek) | — | — |
| Age Group, straight 2% | — | — |
| NCAA Division I | — | — |
| NCAA Division II | — | — |
| High School (NFHS) | — | — |
| USA Swimming formula | — | — |
| British Swimming | — | — |
How swim time conversion works
A yards pool is about 9% shorter than a meters pool, and a short course pool has twice as many walls to push off as a long course one. Every converter accounts for both — the difference between them is how.
Age Group (Hy-Tek defaults)
The method most club meet software uses. Yards and meters convert with a straight factor of 1.11, except distance freestyle, which pairs 500 y/400 m and 1000 y/800 m at 0.875 and 1650 y/1500 m at 1.006. Short course and long course then differ by a fixed amount for each extra turn:
| Stroke | Seconds per turn |
|---|---|
| Freestyle | 0.8 |
| Backstroke | 0.6 |
| Breaststroke | 1.0 |
| Butterfly | 0.7 |
| Individual Medley | 0.8 |
Worked example: a 25.00 50 free in yards becomes 25.00 × 1.11 = 27.75, plus 0.8 seconds for the one turn a long course 50 doesn’t have — 28.55 LCM.
Age Group, straight 2%
Hy-Tek also lets a club replace the per-turn seconds with a flat factor for short ↔ long course meters. This tool uses 1.02 (2%), the example Hy-Tek gives, whatever the stroke. Yards still use the factors above.
NCAA
College qualifying converts 25 meter times to 25 yards only — the NCAA accepts no long course times. The factors are set each season; Division I’s for 2026-27 come from its qualifying-standards document and Division II’s from the Rules Book. The result is carried to five decimals, then truncated to the hundredth. Converting yards to meters divides by the same factor.
| Event | Division I | Division II |
|---|---|---|
| 400 m → 500 y | 1.153 | 1.143 |
| 800 m → 1000 y | 1.153 | 1.143 |
| 1500 m → 1650 y | 1.013 | 1.003 |
| All other events | 0.906 | 0.896 |
High school (NFHS)
The NFHS publishes a yards ↔ short course meters chart for high school events, with separate factors for girls and boys and for each direction, so a time from a meters pool can be compared to a yards state cut. It doesn’t cover long course, and it may be used for seeding and qualifying times but not national records.
USA Swimming formula
USA Swimming’s formula works in hundredths of a second: multiply by 1.11 going from yards to meters (0.8925 for the 400/800 free against the 500/1000 and 1.02 for the 1500 against the 1650), then add a turn increment going to long course — 0.70 s for butterfly, 0.60 for backstroke, 1.00 for breaststroke and 0.80 for freestyle and IM, doubled for a 100, quadrupled for a 200 and so on.
British Swimming
British Swimming’s Equivalent Time Algorithm converts between 25 and 50 meter pools with a turn factor for each event and rounds to a tenth of a second. It doesn’t cover yards. Its documentation is incomplete, so this converter follows a published reverse-engineering of it — treat the results as close, not exact.
Manual multiplier
If your meet director or club publishes its own factor, enter it yourself. The time is multiplied exactly as entered and rounded to the hundredth.
Frequently asked questions
More free swim tools
Planning practice? Use the swim interval calculator to turn a pace into send-offs and total up a set.
Seed meets without converting a single time by hand
CoachBrighter applies your team’s conversion factors automatically when you enter athletes into a meet, pulls in results from Meet Manager files, and keeps every swimmer’s best times in one place.