Start from the cabinet you have or the sink you love. You get the widest sink the cabinet takes, or the cabinet the sink needs, with the makers’ own sizes that fit.
Your sink
Up to a 33″ sink for your 36″ cabinet3″ narrower than the cabinet, 1½″ each side (Yale Appliance); a sink’s own “minimum cabinet” line comes first
Quick answer: an undermount or drop-in sink should be 3″ narrower than its sink base cabinet: a 36″ cabinet takes a sink up to 33″, a 33″ cabinet up to 30″. A farmhouse sink is the other way round: the makers put a 33″ farmhouse sink in a 33″ apron-front sink base. The sink’s own “minimum cabinet” line always comes first.
How to use the kitchen sink size calculator
- Pick what you know: the cabinet you have, or the sink you love.
- Measure the cabinet side to side, outside to outside (the size on its label: SB36 is 36″), or type the sink’s overall width from its listing.
- Pick the mount: undermount (under a stone or solid counter), drop-in (its rim on top of the counter) or farmhouse (its apron front showing).
- You get the widest sink the cabinet takes, or the cabinet the sink needs, and the makers’ own sinks with the minimum cabinet each one prints, drawn from above.
The rule behind the numbers
Undermount and drop-in. Yale Appliance’s rule: “Sink base size (inches) – 3 inches = maximum size of sink you should buy”. An undermount sink hangs from the counter by “a 1.5-inch lip of the sink that needs to adhere to your counters on each side”, so “Sinks 24 inches wide must sit in at least a 27-inch sink base cabinet … Sinks that are 30 inches wide must sit in a base cabinet of at least 33 inches.” The makers print the same thing on their sheets: Kraus’s 30″ KHU100-30 has a “Required Minimum Cabinet Size: 33″”, its 33″ dual-mount KHT300-33 one of 36″. It is a rule of thumb, not a law: Kohler designed its 29″ Strive “to maximize bowl space within a minimum 30″ cabinet”, and asks 36″ for its 32″ Vault.
Farmhouse (apron-front). Every farmhouse sink read takes a cabinet of its own width: Kohler’s 32½″ Whitehaven “Fits minimum 33″ (838 mm) base cabinet width”, its 32-11/16″ Whitehaven a 33″ “apron sink base cabinet”, and Kraus’s 33″ fireclay KFR1-33 and 32⅞″ stainless KHF200-33 a 33″ cabinet. (Yale Appliance writes that an apron-front sink needs “1.5 inches of space on either side”; the makers’ own numbers do not.)
Cabinet widths. Base cabinets “come in widths between 12 and 60 inches, and they’re usually available in 3-inch increments” (Bob Vila), so a sink that needs 35″ takes a 36″ cabinet. Kraus also asks 24″ front to back, the standard base cabinet’s depth.
Sink base cabinet → the widest sink
| Cabinet | Undermount or drop-in | Farmhouse |
|---|---|---|
| 24″ | 21″ | 24″ |
| 27″ | 24″ | 27″ |
| 30″ | 27″ | 30″ |
| 33″ | 30″ | 33″ |
| 36″ | 33″ | 36″ |
| 42″ | 39″ | 42″ |
What the makers print
| Sink | Mount | Wide | Minimum cabinet |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kohler Strive K-5409 | undermount | 29″ | 30″ |
| Kraus KHU100-30 | undermount | 30″ | 33″ |
| Kohler Vault K-3821 | undermount | 32″ | 36″ |
| Kraus KHT300-33 | undermount or drop-in | 33″ | 36″ |
| Kohler Whitehaven K-5826 | farmhouse | 32½″ | 33″ |
| Kohler Whitehaven K-5827 | farmhouse | 32 11/16″ | 33″ |
| Kraus KHF200-33 | farmhouse | 32⅞″ | 33″ |
| Kraus KFR1-33 | farmhouse | 33″ | 33″ |
From Kraus’s spec sheets and Studio Kohler’s product pages, read 2026-10-03.
Four worked examples
A 36″ sink base. An undermount or drop-in sink up to 33″: Kraus’s 33″ KHT300-33 and Kohler’s 32″ Vault both ask exactly 36″.
A 30″ undermount sink you love. The sink + 3″ is 33″: a 33″ sink base, which is what Kraus prints for its 30″ KHU100-30.
A 33″ farmhouse sink. A 33″ apron-front sink base: the cabinet Kraus and Kohler print for their 32½–33″ farmhouse sinks.
Keeping an old 30″ cabinet. The rule says a sink up to 27″; some sinks are made to fill it, like Kohler’s 29″ Strive, which asks only 30″. Read the sink’s own line.
Common mistakes
- Measuring the old sink, not the cabinet. “Measuring your base cabinet will determine how big your new sink can be” (Yale Appliance).
- Buying a sink as wide as the cabinet. An undermount sink needs the lip on each side to hang from the counter; a 33″ undermount does not go in a 33″ cabinet.
- Giving a farmhouse sink 3″ extra. Its apron replaces the cabinet’s front; the makers size the cabinet to the sink.
- Trusting the rule over the sink. The minimum cabinet on the sink’s own listing wins: makers run from 1″ to 4″ over the sink’s width.
Plan the cabinets around it with the kitchen cabinet height calculator, check an accessible sink in the ADA kitchen dimensions calculator, and lay the kitchen out in the free 2D planner.
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Kitchen sink size questions
What are standard kitchen sink sizes?
“The most common sink sizes are 24, 30, and 33 inches” (Yale Appliance), the 30″ the most common of all; larger kitchens take 33″ and 36″ sinks.
What size sink for a 36 inch base cabinet?
An undermount or drop-in sink up to 33″. A farmhouse sink takes a cabinet of its own width (every farmhouse sink read is sized that way), so one about 36″ wide in a 36″ apron-front base.
What size sink base cabinet for a 30 inch sink?
A 33″ sink base for an undermount or drop-in sink (the sink + 3″), as Kraus prints for its 30″ KHU100-30. A farmhouse sink takes a base of its own width: check its listing’s minimum cabinet.
What are farmhouse sink dimensions?
They are sold by the cabinet they fit: the “33-inch” farmhouse sinks read run 32½–33″ wide and go in a 33″ apron-front sink base.
How wide is a standard sink base cabinet?
Base cabinets come in 3″ steps from 12″ to 60″; for a new kitchen “The most common base cabinet sizes … is typically 33-36 inches” (Yale Appliance), and Kraus asks 24″ front to back.
Can a sink be the same width as the cabinet?
A farmhouse sink, yes: that is how its makers size it. An undermount or drop-in sink, no: it needs about 1½″ each side.