High school wrestling weight classes for 2026-27: boys, girls, and what your state uses

The NFHS publishes the classes, but each state chooses which set it competes in, so the list on most pages is one of three. All three, for boys and for girls, are below. After the tables comes the rule that decides which class a wrestler may actually enter, because that is the part the chart cannot tell you.

Holding the certified class through the season is a feeding problem rather than a cutting one, and the week-by-week version is in what a wrestler eats in season.

The 2026-27 NFHS weight classes

The three sets were established by the NFHS Wrestling Rules Committee effective 1 July 2023, and they are the sets in force for 2026-27. Pounds are the unit the sport uses; kilograms are in brackets for readers outside the United States.

Boys

Girls

Read the columns as alternatives, not as levels. A state that runs the 13-class set does not have a 106 class or a 144 class at all; its lightest boys' class is 107 and the classes around the middle sit at 139 and 145. The set decides which numbers exist in your state, which is why the state matters more than the national chart.

Which set your state uses

Most state associations adopted the 14-class sets when the choice arrived in 2023-24, and that remains the norm. A few chose 13 or 12, and states can change their choice between seasons. The table below lists only the states I have confirmed from the association's own current regulations or its published decision. It is deliberately short: a wrong entry here would send a wrestler to the wrong bracket, and I would rather you check your own association's page than trust a guess.

If your state is not listed, the answer is on your state association's wrestling page, usually in the season regulations under weight classes. The college and international classes are on a separate page, because the NCAA runs ten classes and United World Wrestling runs ten per style in kilograms, and none of them line up with the high school sets.

The growth allowance

The NFHS provides for a two-pound growth allowance during the season. The state association sets the date, and after it a wrestler certified at a class may weigh in up to two pounds over the class limit. Ohio, for example, applies it from 25 December, and its regulations say the allowance can only be used by a wrestler who has certified at that class.

Two things follow. The allowance is added to the class limit, so a 132 lb wrestler in Ohio may weigh 134 at a January weigh-in. And it exists because teenagers grow, which is the reason for the whole certification system below. It is an allowance on the scale for a body that is getting bigger. It is not two more pounds to take off.

Why the chart cannot tell you your class

Every page with these tables on it, including this one, leaves out the rule that matters most. The chart lists the classes that exist. It does not tell a wrestler which of them he or she is allowed to enter, and in high school wrestling that is decided before the season by certification, not by ambition.

The NFHS weight management programme runs like this. Before the season, every wrestler takes a hydration test, with urine specific gravity at or below 1.025 required to proceed. A body composition assessment follows immediately after. From those two, a minimum wrestling weight is calculated at a body fat floor: 7 percent for boys, and from 2026-27, 19 percent for girls, raised from 12 by the NFHS Wrestling Rules Committee with the backing of its Sports Medicine Advisory Committee. The lowest class a wrestler may compete in is the class at or above that minimum. Where a wrestler certifies above their intended class, the descent to it is capped at an average of 1.5 percent of body weight per week, monitored through the season. The parents, a health-care professional and the coach are all inside the process.

The floor is a limit, and it should never be read as a target. That needs saying plainly, because the number is easy to read the wrong way. A certified minimum is the weight below which a wrestler may not go. It is a protection, and it was written after the sport learned the hard way what happens without one. A wrestler whose certified minimum lands them in the 132 class has been told that 126 is closed to them, and that if they do not fit 132 either, the class above is where they wrestle. Nobody has told them to get to 132.

The wrestling minimum weight calculator on this site works the floor out from body mass and body fat using the 2026-27 NFHS figures, with the NCAA floors alongside for wrestlers heading to college. It takes a minute, and it answers the question the chart cannot.

None of this existed when I wrestled. I made weight for eighteen years in a system with no hydration test, no floor and no descent limit, and I watched what that did to people, including me. The certification rule is the single best thing that has happened to weight in this sport. Treat it as the protection it is.

Heavyweight, and the classes people ask about

285. The top boys' class, and the only one with a floor written into the class itself. Ohio, for example, requires a minimum of 210 lb to enter 285, or 212 once the growth allowance applies, and the girls' 235 class carries a minimum of 184 in the same regulations. Other states set their own figures. The purpose is to stop a 190 lb wrestler from entering the heavyweight bracket to dodge a deep 215 class.

106 and 100. The lightest boys' and girls' classes in the 14-class sets. They are also where certification does most of its work, because they are the classes wrestlers are most tempted to reduce toward, and the classes where growth arrives fastest. A 106 lb freshman is often a 132 lb junior.

140. Exists for girls in the 14-class set. Does not exist for boys in any set; the boys' classes go 138 to 144, 139 to 145, or 138 to 145 depending on the set.

170. A boys' class only in the 12-class set. In the 14-class set the 170 lb wrestler is in 175; in the 13-class set he is in 172. For girls, 170 is a class in the 13 and 14-class sets.

Girls' wrestling: the same system, a different set

Until 2023-24 girls competed in the boys' classes. The NFHS then published separate girls' sets, starting at 100 lb rather than 106 and topping out at 235 rather than 285, with the 14-class version spaced five pounds apart from 100 up to 145. The certification system is the same, with one difference that changed this season: the body fat floor for girls is now 19 percent. The committee's stated reason was a safer margin for minimum wrestling weight, based on peer-reviewed data. In plain terms, the lowest class a girl may be certified into moved up.

Girls' wrestling is the fastest-growing part of the sport, and more states are moving to full 14-class girls' brackets with their own state tournaments as participation rises. If your state's girls' set is not in the table above, the association page will have it.

For parents and coaches

A growing wrestler who does not fit a class enters the class above. That is the whole of the recommendation for anyone under 18, and any conversation beyond it belongs with a physician rather than a coach. The middle school and youth classes have their own page, with the reasons a growing athlete should not be reducing at all. The growth spurt, and why the four kilograms that arrive in a season are not a discipline problem, is in the coaches' article on growth, and the rules that apply to any athlete under 18 are in weight cutting under 18.

For coaches and adult wrestlers who want the certification system explained as a plan rather than a rule, certification first sets it out, and the second weigh-in covers the tournament format that decides most seasons. Neither is written for a high school wrestler to apply alone.

What happens on certification day, and the 2026-27 numbers for high school and college side by side, are set out in wrestling weight certification, explained.

Common questions

Is there a 140 lb weight class in high school wrestling?

In the girls' 14-class set, yes: 140 sits between 135 and 145. No boys' set has a 140 class. The boys' 14-class set goes from 138 to 144, the 13-class set from 139 to 145, and the 12-class set from 138 to 145. A boy who weighs 140 wrestles at 144 or 145 depending on the set his state uses.

What is the weight limit for high school wrestling?

The class number is the most a wrestler may weigh at the weigh-in for that class. The top boys' class is 285 lb and the top girls' class is 235 lb, and states set a minimum weight to enter those top classes. At the other end, 106 lb for boys and 100 lb for girls are the lightest classes, and the lowest class any wrestler may enter is decided by certification, not by the chart.

What weight class is 170 in wrestling?

It depends on the set. For boys, 170 is a class only in the 12-class set. In the 14-class set a wrestler who weighs 170 is in the 175 class, and in the 13-class set he is in 172. For girls, 170 is a class in both the 13 and 14-class sets, and in the 12-class set a girl at 170 wrestles at 185.

What is the easiest wrestling weight class?

There is no such thing. What makes a class hard is who is in it, and the middle classes usually carry the most entries in a bracket. The honest answer for any wrestler is the class they fit without reducing, because a wrestler competing at natural weight has the whole season to get better at wrestling rather than at making weight.

When does the growth allowance start?

The NFHS provides for a two-pound growth allowance and each state association sets the date it takes effect. Ohio, for example, grants it on 25 December and only to wrestlers already certified in that class. Check your own state's wrestling regulations for the date.

Do girls have their own weight classes?

Yes. Since the 2023-24 season the NFHS has published separate girls' sets of 12, 13 and 14 classes, starting at 100 lb and topping out at 235 lb. Before that, girls competed in the boys' classes.

What changed for the 2026-27 season?

The weight classes did not change. The change is in the certification rule: the minimum body fat percentage for girls was raised from 12 to 19 percent, effective 2026-27, on the recommendation of the NFHS Wrestling Rules Committee and its sports medicine advisers. That raises the floor for the lowest class a girl may be certified into. The boys' floor stays at 7 percent.

Can a wrestler move up a weight class during the season?

Up, yes, at any time, and a growing wrestler who no longer fits a class should. Down is limited: a wrestler may not compete below the class set by their certified minimum weight, and the descent from certification to that class is capped at an average of 1.5 percent of body weight a week.