How many times a day does the average person fart?

Most healthy adults pass gas somewhere between 5 and 25 times a day. A frequently cited 1991 study in the journal Gut measured healthy volunteers on a normal diet and found a median of about 10 passages per day, with a total volume averaging around 700 millilitres.

Is farting 30 times a day too much?

It is above the usual range but not automatically a problem. A high-fibre meal, a lot of beans, carbonated drinks or a new medication can push anyone well past 25 in a single day. What matters more than the count is whether it is a sudden, persistent change from your own baseline, and whether it comes with pain, bloating, weight loss or a change in bowel habits.

Do you fart in your sleep?

Yes. Gas keeps being produced and the anal sphincter relaxes during sleep, so most people pass gas overnight without waking. It is one reason self-counts almost always come in lower than measured totals.

Do men fart more than women?

Studies have not found a consistent difference in frequency between men and women eating the same diet. Diet, gut microbiome composition and how much air you swallow explain far more of the variation between two people than sex does.

How many farts a day is normal?

Between 5 and 25 times a day is the normal range for a healthy adult, moving roughly half a litre to a litre and a half of gas. If you are somewhere in there, you are unremarkable. Sorry.

Key facts

Typical range: 5–25 passages per day
Measured median: ~10 per day (Gut, 1991)
Daily volume: ~500–1,500 mL
Main gases: Nitrogen, hydrogen, CO₂, methane, oxygen
Odourless share: About 99% by volume

What the research actually measured

The number everyone quotes comes from a small but careful study published in the journal Gut in 1991. Healthy volunteers eating their normal diet were measured over 24 hours using a rectal catheter — a method that captures what self-reporting cannot. The median was around ten passages a day, with a mean total volume of roughly 700 millilitres.

Two details from that data matter more than the headline number. First, the spread between individuals was enormous: the same healthy category covered people at three a day and people well into the twenties. Second, gas production rose sharply after meals and stayed elevated for hours, which is why the count clusters rather than spreading evenly across the day.

Why your own count is always wrong

People who try to count themselves reliably undershoot, for three reasons:

Sleep. Production does not stop overnight and the sphincter relaxes. Those hours are simply missing from any self-count.
Small volumes. Plenty of passages are too small to notice, especially while walking or sitting.
Recall. Counting a mundane, involuntary event across sixteen waking hours is exactly the kind of task memory is worst at.

This is the entire reason FartRank exists as an app rather than a mental tally: a timestamped log beats a guess. It is also why comparing your logged count to the studies is apples to oranges — you are logging what you noticed, they were measuring everything.

What moves the number

Fermentable carbohydrates

Most intestinal gas is not swallowed air — it is manufactured by gut bacteria fermenting carbohydrates that your small intestine could not absorb. Beans, lentils, onions, wheat, cruciferous vegetables and sugar alcohols all deliver fermentable material to the colon. More substrate, more gas. See the full food breakdown.

Swallowed air

Carbonated drinks, chewing gum, smoking, eating quickly and talking while eating all increase swallowed air. Most of it is belched back out, but some travels the full distance. Nitrogen, which your body does not produce, is a large fraction of flatus precisely because it was swallowed.

Your particular microbiome

Two people can eat the identical meal and produce very different amounts of gas, because they are hosting different bacterial populations. Roughly a third of adults carry methane-producing archaea and exhale detectable methane; the rest do not. Neither is better. It is closer to blood type than to fitness.

Change of diet

A sudden jump in fibre — going vegetarian, starting a health kick, discovering lentils — reliably produces a noisy fortnight. Gut populations do adapt, and the effect usually settles as the balance of bacteria shifts. Ramping up gradually gives that adaptation time to happen.

When the number is worth attention

The count on its own is a poor signal. A change from your own baseline, with company, is a better one. Things worth raising with a doctor rather than a leaderboard:

A sudden, persistent change with no dietary explanation
Pain, cramping or bloating that does not resolve
Unexplained weight loss
Blood, or a lasting change in bowel habits
Symptoms that reliably follow a specific food, such as dairy

Frequently asked questions

Is it bad to hold it in?

It is uncomfortable rather than dangerous. Gas held in is partly reabsorbed through the intestinal wall and exhaled through the lungs; the rest waits and leaves later. Holding it in habitually can contribute to bloating and cramping, but it does not accumulate indefinitely.

Does holding it in make it come out worse later?

Often, yes — a longer stay in the colon means more time for bacteria to work on it, and sulphur-containing compounds are what produce the smell. This is folk wisdom that happens to have a mechanism behind it.

Why do I fart more at night or first thing in the morning?

Gas accumulates while you sleep and the colon is most active shortly after waking, so the morning tends to clear the backlog. Large evening meals push the same effect later.

Do children and older adults differ?

Frequency is broadly similar across ages in healthy people. What changes is diet, medication and gut transit time — all of which matter more than age itself.

This is general information, not medical advice. FartRank is a game. If your symptoms are painful, sudden, persistent, or come with weight loss, bleeding or a change in bowel habits, talk to a doctor — not to a leaderboard.

Sources

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Published 26 August 2026 · by Furiosa Studio