Amateur boxing weight classes

If you box competitively as an amateur, the list you need is World Boxing's. It is the body the IOC recognises, it runs the road to Los Angeles 2028, and most national federations now sit under it.

The Olympic classes for LA28

The IOC confirmed these after the 144th Session restored boxing to the programme, with the competition and qualification pathway managed by World Boxing.

Seven each, with 124 quota places per sex out of 248. Women's boxing gained a category from Paris 2024, where the split was 7 and 6. At London 2012, where women's boxing first appeared, there were 3.

Notice the men's gap from 70 to 80 kg. Ten kilos inside one step, and then another ten to 90. The Olympic grid is deliberately short, and the price of a short grid is wide divisions at the top.

World Boxing runs the sport, and these are its classes

World Boxing was formed in April 2023 and granted provisional IOC recognition on 26 February 2025, after four continental confederations and a majority of national federations had affiliated to it. It manages the competition and the qualification pathway for LA28.

In its own competitions, following changes effective 1 January 2025, it runs ten classes per sex. The seven Olympic weights sit inside them.

Read how those are written. Every category has a floor as well as a ceiling, stated in the rules rather than implied. A World Boxing lightweight is not a boxer at or under 60 kg. He is a boxer between 55 and 60, and the lower figure is enforced.

The IBA grid, and why it is a separate decision

The IBA still runs competitions and still publishes weight categories, but it is not inside the Olympic movement. Its recognition was suspended in 2019 and withdrawn by the IOC Session on 22 June 2023, by 69 votes to 1 with 10 abstentions. The Court of Arbitration for Sport rejected its appeal. The IOC organised the boxing tournaments itself at Tokyo and Paris rather than hand them back.

The categories, for anyone boxing an IBA event. Under its Technical and Competition Rules effective 15 April 2026 there are fourteen elite men's classes, a 92 to 100 kg heavyweight having been added that did not exist before.

Elite women run twelve.

Twice the Olympic grid, and the numbers do not line up with it. An IBA welterweight sits between 63.5 and 67 kg. Under World Boxing the nearest categories are 60 to 65 and 65 to 70, so the same boxer is in a different division with a different name and different neighbours. Carrying a division across is not a translation problem. There is nothing to translate into.

Note the shape of the IBA table too. Over and to, floor and ceiling, exactly as World Boxing writes it.

Read the bulletin line by line. It is duller than anything else you will read that month and it prevents more problems than any chart.

One rule in particular is worth checking before a multi-day event rather than during one. The in-competition period does not close overnight between bouts, which matters to anyone on prescribed stimulant medication. How the timing actually runs.

The entries check fixes your category for the whole event

This is the part that separates amateur boxing from every professional format, and it is not on any weight class list.

Before a tournament begins there is a general weigh-in, sometimes called the entries check. The weight registered there fixes your category for the entire event. You cannot change it afterwards.

After that there is a weigh-in on the morning of each day you box. Those daily weigh-ins control only the maximum. Over it, you are out.

The category is bounded at the bottom as well as the top

Most boxers know they can be too heavy. Far fewer know they can be too light.

At the general weigh-in you have to sit above the maximum of the class below yours as well as at or below the maximum of your own. Go far enough under and you fail from the wrong direction, having done everything asked of you and more.

This is why the World Boxing table above is written as a range rather than as a single number. The floor is printed in the rules rather than inferred from the category below, and the first official weigh-in has to clear it.

The lighter divisions are where this bites, because the classes there sit closest together. Since the grids differ between organisations, do not take the width from memory or from a coach's recollection. Before you fix a target, write down two numbers from the bulletin: the maximum of your class, and the maximum of the class below it. Your margin lives in the space between them.

What choosing a class actually means here

A professional asks what he can strip off and then put back. That question does not apply.

You are holding a weight for up to a week while boxing, with no single cut to recover from, and the scale is the first thing that happens on every day you compete. So the real question is whether you can make the class on 4 or 5 mornings in a row and box well 3 hours later each time.

That answer lands a division higher than the professional one, almost every time. How the tournament format works, and what the descent looks like when there is no recovery window to plan around.

Where the professional numbers come in

Nowhere, and that is worth saying plainly because boxers move between the two.

Professional boxing runs 17 divisions in pounds, set by the WBC, WBA, IBF and WBO. Amateur boxing runs 7 to 13 in kilograms depending on the organisation. The names overlap, the numbers do not, and a boxer who turns over will be choosing from a different grid under different rules with a day of recovery attached. The 17 professional divisions, if that is the direction you are heading.

Before you agree a class with anyone

Ask the organiser for the bulletin in writing, and read the two numbers that bracket your category rather than the one you were planning around. Then decide whether you can hold it for a week rather than hit it for a morning.

Charts move between cycles and between organisations. This one is accurate to what has been published for the current cycle, and it is still not a substitute for the document governing your own tournament.

Common questions

What are the Olympic boxing weight classes?

For Los Angeles 2028 there are 7 for each sex. Men: 55, 60, 65, 70, 80, 90 and over 90 kg. Women: 51, 54, 57, 60, 65, 70 and 75 kg. It is the first Games with full parity in the number of categories.

How many weight classes are there in amateur boxing?

For anyone on the Olympic pathway, World Boxing's: 10 per sex, with the 7 Olympic weights inside that set. The IBA publishes its own grid of 14 for men and 12 for women, but it lost IOC recognition in 2023 and sits outside that pathway. Whichever applies, your event's bulletin is the list that governs you on the day.

What is the entries check in amateur boxing?

A general weigh-in held before the tournament begins. The weight registered there fixes your category for the whole event and cannot be changed afterwards. Both the minimum and the maximum of the category are controlled at that point, unlike the daily weigh-ins, which control only the maximum.

Can you be too light for a weight class in amateur boxing?

Yes, at the entries check. You have to be above the maximum of the class below yours as well as at or below the maximum of your own, so a boxer who goes too far under can fail from the wrong direction.

How often do you weigh in at an amateur tournament?

On the morning of every day you box, in addition to the entries check before the tournament starts. That is why the class has to be one you can hold for a week rather than make once.

Are amateur and professional boxing weight classes the same?

No. Professional boxing runs 17 divisions in pounds under the WBC, WBA, IBF and WBO. Amateur boxing runs between 7 and 14 in kilograms depending on the organisation and the sex, and the names that overlap do not correspond to the same weights.