Garage Door Sizes: Complete Guide & Chart
The short answer
Most garage door sizes come off a list of about a dozen standards, and 9 feet by 7 feet for a single bay plus 16 feet by 7 feet for a double are the two you'll meet most often. To have your own opening measured before you order anything, call Century Garage Door Service at 833-435-4540.
Garage door sizes come off a short standard list. Single bays run 8 to 10 feet wide, doubles run 14 to 18 feet wide, and both sit at either 7 or 8 feet tall unless you’re housing something with a ladder rack on the roof. Anything outside those figures is a custom door, which just changes the lead time and how the counterbalance gets specified.
The number you actually need was never stamped on the door. It belongs to the hole in your wall.
Measure the opening before you shop. Garage door sizes are named for the finished opening they fill rather than for the panel, and that one detail trips up more homeowners than everything else in this topic put together.
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What a garage door size actually describes
A garage door size is written width first, then height, and both figures describe the finished opening rather than the panel covering it. A 9 by 7 door fills a 9 foot wide, 7 foot tall hole, and the panel is built a shade larger so it overlaps and seals against the stop molding.
So you don’t add anything. You don’t subtract anything either.
That kills the costliest mistake in this topic, ordering to the width of the old door instead of the opening it hung in. Our garage door parts diagram guide names the jamb, the stop molding, the header, and the rest of the opening.
Standard garage door sizes for a single bay
Single widths step up a foot at a time, from 8 feet on the narrow end out to 10 feet on the wide end. Height on almost every stock door is either 7 feet or 8 feet, with nothing in between.
Older detached garages often measure 8 feet across, which was generous when cars were narrower and is snug now. The 9 by 7 door is the workhorse. Builders framed for it decade after decade, and it is the one suppliers keep deepest in stock. Nine feet of width also leaves a midsize car a mirror’s worth of room on each side.
Ten feet wide belongs to work trucks and shop bays.
Standard garage door sizes for a double bay
Double widths land at 14 feet, 15 feet, 16 feet, and 18 feet, again at 7 or 8 feet tall. Sixteen by seven is the double that turns up most.
Fourteen feet is where things get uncomfortable. Two vehicles fit on paper, and in practice somebody is folding a mirror.
Eighteen feet is a wide door and behaves like one. Longer span, more weight on the same counterbalance, more flex across every section, and reinforcement struts start earning their keep. Wide doubles are where an underspecified hardware set shows itself fastest, which our garage door hardware guide covers grade by grade.
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The garage door sizes chart, size by size
The garage doors sizes below are ordering figures rather than tape readings, which is the distinction that trips people up. Everything is in feet, width first.
| Size in feet | Bay | What it suits | Watch for |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8 x 7 | Single | Older detached garages, compact cars | Little mirror clearance |
| 9 x 7 | Single | The default single on decades of housing | The size everyone stocks |
| 10 x 7 | Single, wide | Wide bays, small work vans | Longer span, so hardware grade matters |
| 9 x 8 | Single, tall | A pickup with a bed rack | Extra section, longer track, new spring spec |
| 10 x 8 | Single, oversized | Work trucks, shop bays | Usually a custom order |
| 14 x 7 | Double, narrow | Two compact cars | Tight for full size vehicles |
| 15 x 7 | Double | Older two car garages | Check stock first |
| 16 x 7 | Double | The default double | Widely stocked, widely framed |
| 16 x 8 | Double, tall | A tall SUV or pickup sharing the bay | Headroom and counterbalance change |
| 18 x 8 | Double, wide | Two full size trucks, a boat plus a car | Long span wants struts |
| 10 x 10 and up | RV or shop | Motorhomes, tall trailers | Custom build, header designed for it |
Those garage door sizes cover almost every residential opening you’ll meet. Every garage doors size question we take on the phone comes down to two numbers, the width of the opening and its height.
Door heights, and what the extra foot buys
Seven feet of height clears an ordinary car with room to spare. Eight feet is what you want if a pickup with a bed rack, a van with a roof vent, a rooftop tent, or a bike on a hitch carrier has to come inside.
That extra foot isn’t free. It puts another section in the door and lengthens both vertical tracks. It also rewrites the cable drum and spring specification, because there is now more travel and more weight to hold. Garage door sizes are fixed by the hole, so going from a 7 foot door to an 8 foot one in an existing opening isn’t a swap. It’s a framing change.
Above 8 feet you’re into RV bays and custom territory.
Where garage door sizes come from, the opening itself
The rough opening and the door carry the same nominal figure, so a 9 by 7 door drops into a 9 by 7 hole.
What matters more is whether the opening is honest. Take the width at the floor and near the header, then use the narrower figure. Take the height at both jambs and in the middle and work from the tallest, because a door ordered to the short side leaves a strip of daylight at the high end. An opening meaningfully out of square gets corrected in the framing, not hidden behind a new door.
Correct the opening now and you won’t spend the next twenty years fighting it.
Headroom, backroom, sideroom, and the torsion spring above the door
Garage door sizes say nothing about the clearances around the opening, and those clearances decide whether standard hardware fits at all. Each one is named for the hardware that has to live in it.
Headroom is the clear wall between the top of the opening and the lowest pipe, light, duct, or joist above it. What it measures is room for the counterbalance and for the turn out of vertical, because the torsion spring, the shaft it winds onto, the bearing plates, and the curved track all sit in that band. Roughly a foot covers a conventional setup, and low headroom track arrangements exist for ceilings that can’t spare it. Headroom in detail belongs to our standard garage door height guide.
Backroom is the depth behind the opening, taken from its inside face straight back. What it measures is where the door goes once it’s open, because a sectional door doesn’t vanish. It lies flat overhead on the horizontal tracks. Budget the door’s height plus a bit more, then add for the opener rail, which reaches further back than the tracks do.
Sideroom is the flat jamb outside each edge of the opening. What it measures is mounting surface, and four things want it: the vertical track, its brackets, the anchor at the bottom, and the lift cable running down that side. Water heaters, shelving brackets, stair stringers, and electrical panels are the usual offenders, and the two sides are rarely equal.
How to measure for garage door sizes, step by step
Door down, tape measure, pencil. Write every figure down instead of trusting your memory.
Width of the finished opening
At the floor and again near the top, jamb face to jamb face. Record the narrower figure.
Height of the finished opening
At each jamb and once in the middle, floor to the underside of the header. Record the tallest.
Headroom
Top of the opening straight up to the lowest obstruction above it.
Backroom
Inside face of the opening straight back to the first wall or obstruction.
Sideroom
Edge of the opening out to the nearest obstacle, both sides.
Floor and square
Note whether the slab slopes across the opening, and whether the two diagonals match.
Photograph the opening with the door up and with it down.
When your opening doesn't match standard garage door sizes
An odd opening doesn’t leave you stuck. It leaves you with two roads.
The first is a custom door built to your dimensions. Sections get made to the width you need, the hardware gets specified for the finished weight, and the spring set gets wound for that weight rather than for a catalog figure. Lead time is longer, and everything else works like a stock door.
The second road is changing the opening to suit a standard door, and it’s bigger than it sounds, because the header carries load from the wall and roof above. Reframing it is structural work rather than a Saturday project.
In my honest opinion, if the opening is truly odd the custom door is usually the shorter road.
Garage door sizes and prices, and what drives the quote
Garage door sizes and prices move together because size sets the material and the hardware before the counterbalance specification, the glazing, and the finish come into it, so call 833-435-4540 with your measurements and the quote arrives in writing.
Safety, and the two size changes that aren't yours to make
Two of the changes homeowners ask about while comparing garage door sizes are not homeowner work at all.
Changing the width or height of an opening is structural. The header carries load, and cutting into it without a properly sized replacement is how a wall sags above your door.
Re-sizing a spring set to match a new door weight is the other one, and it gets underestimated badly. The counterbalance is matched to the door’s weight, so a door running on a spring set sized for a lighter door is dangerous rather than merely inconvenient. It runs away from you on the way down and fights the opener on the way up.
Never adjust, wind, unwind, replace, or release the tension on the torsion springs above the door or the lift cables running down the sides, because they hold hundreds of pounds of stored energy and get replaced with winding bars by a trained technician. Drive gear internals and main power wiring are technician work too.
Look at all of it. Keep your hands off.
Hinges, drums, tracks, and brackets specified for a 9 by 7 were never specified for a 16 by 8, and the published standards behind counterbalance and track selection say so. The DASMA technical data sheets on residential garage doors (dasma.com) are what the trade works from.
FAQs: garage door sizes
What are the most common garage door sizes?
For a single bay, 9 feet wide by 7 feet tall. For a double, 16 feet wide by 7 feet tall. Those two are what suppliers stock deepest and what builders framed for decades. Singles also come 8 or 10 feet wide, and doubles run 14 up to 18 feet.
What is the average garage door size on a two car garage?
There isn’t really a single average garage door size, but 16 feet by 7 feet is the closest thing to one on a two car bay. Fifteen by seven turns up on older houses, and 18 by 8 on newer builds. Measure your own opening before trusting any average.
Does the rough opening have to be bigger than the door?
No. The opening and the door carry the same nominal figure, so a 9 by 7 door goes into a 9 by 7 opening. The panel is built slightly larger so it overlaps and seals against the stop molding, and that allowance already sits in the label figure.
The opening is wider at the floor than at the header. Which figure do I use?
The narrower one. A door built to the wide reading binds against the tight end of the opening, and one built to the narrow reading still seals, because the stop molding covers the difference. Do the same with height and take the tallest. A badly out of square opening gets corrected in the framing. Call 833-435-4540.
Can I put a taller door in my existing opening?
Only by changing the opening, which is structural work rather than a door swap. The header carries load, so raising the height means a new header sized for the span. A taller door also wants a longer track, more headroom, a counterbalance for the extra weight, and cables cut for the extra travel.
How do I find out what size garage door I already have?
Measure the opening instead of hunting for a label. You might find one inside on the edge of a section, and plenty have peeled off or been painted over. Garage door sizes are named for the finished opening anyway, so a tape across the width and up to the header gives you the figure a supplier wants.
Can I measure for a new garage door myself?
Yes. A tape measure and a pencil cover it, and width plus height are the easy part. What people miss is the headroom above the opening, the backroom behind it, the sideroom at each jamb, and whether the slab runs level. Get your figures confirmed before you order, because garage door sizes get locked in when the door is built. Call 833-435-4540.
Get your garage door sizes confirmed before you order
Guessing at garage door sizes is how a door turns up that doesn’t fit an opening you can’t easily change. Century Garage Door Service answers live around the clock at 833-435-4540 and gives you a two-hour arrival window with a text when the truck rolls. A technician measures the opening, the headroom, the backroom, and the sideroom, then puts the figures in writing. You get a written quote before any work starts, and only the quoted trip fee if you decline. Seniors and military get a standing discount. So do first responders. If you’d rather have the whole system looked over, book a garage door safety inspection.
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