Subway calories: how many in a 6-inch and a footlong?

At the counter, everything moves fast: bread, filling, cheese, toasted or not, salad, sauce. In a minute you have built a sandwich whose calories can vary twofold. The good news is that Subway France publishes an official sheet, “Informations nutritionnelles et allergènes”, accurate when it was printed in October 2025. It lists the calories of 18 recipes for a 15 cm sub, the size known as a 6-inch in English-speaking countries, along with their Nutri-Score.

For the 30 cm sub, or footlong, Subway spells the rule out in black and white: just double the 6-inch values. A footlong is two 6-inch subs end to end, with twice the bread, filling and sauce. The values were produced by an independent laboratory from supplier data, for the exact build shown: switching bread, adding cheese or a second sauce changes the result.

The Nutri-Score, France’s A to E front-of-pack grade, does not change between 6-inch and footlong, because it is calculated per 100 g. A sub graded A is therefore not “light” in itself: the portion decides the calorie total.

The French sheet only gives calories. For protein, wraps, salads and each ingredient on its own, the most complete sheet we found is Subway Germany’s “Nährwertinformationen”, dated September 2026. For each recipe it covers the recommended bread, the filling, the standard salad and the house sauce, with calories, fat, carbohydrate, fibre, protein and salt. It is our main source for the rest of this article.

Recipes are not identical from one country to the next, and neither are the numbers. A 6-inch tuna sub shows 407 kcal in France, 334 kcal in Germany and 400 kcal in the UK. The Veggie Delite goes from 276 kcal in France to 231 kcal in Germany and 227 kcal in the UK, the B.M.T. from 395 to 369 and 386 kcal. The gaps come from the bread, cheese and sauce in the standard recipe, but also from the method: the UK sheet counts bread, filling, lettuce, cucumber and onion, without sauce or cheese. So keep the order of magnitude in mind rather than the exact calorie.

The table also shows two clear trends. A wrap adds about 100 kcal (84 to 115 kcal) compared with a 6-inch sub with the same filling. A salad, with no bread, is almost always lighter: 98 kcal for the Chicken Fajita salad against 250 kcal for the sub. Watch out, though, for the tandoori chicken, BBQ Rib and Nacho Chicken salads, which still top 270 kcal because of their sauce.

Bread is the most calorific ingredient in almost every Subway sandwich, and yet it is the one people pick fastest. On the German sheet, a 6-inch bread ranges from 157 kcal for wholegrain to 294 kcal for gluten-free, a gap of nearly 140 kcal before you have even chosen a filling. For a footlong, the gap doubles to almost 275 kcal.

Honey oat bread often surprises people: it looks “healthier”, but it is the heaviest of the standard breads (96 g, 235 kcal), with 9 g of sugars. On the other hand, it has the most fibre (5 g), just ahead of wholegrain (4.4 g). Cheese and oregano bread costs only 5 kcal more than plain Italian. The wheat wrap, finally, weighs in at 276 kcal on its own, which explains why wraps carry around a hundred extra calories.

In France, the breads are called complet (wholegrain), italien, parmesan origan, avoine & miel (honey oat) and tortilla wrap. Subway France does not publish their calories separately: the values below come from the German sheet, where names and recipes may differ slightly.

After bread, sauce is the second lever. The German sheet counts a standard 14 g portion per 6-inch sub, and the gap between sauces is clear. Mayonnaise-based sauces such as Chipotle Southwest (62 kcal) or Caesar (50 kcal) bring about three times as much as ketchup, yoghurt sauce (18 kcal each) or barbecue sauce (21 kcal). Balsamic vinegar barely counts: 1 kcal a portion. Olive oil is a quiet trap, with 32 kcal for a simple 3.5 g drizzle.

Cheese follows the same logic. A portion of sliced cheese or cheddar adds 42 to 46 kcal to a 6-inch, cream cheese 28 kcal. Count 37 kcal for a portion of bacon (9 g) and 41 kcal for crispy onions (7 g). On the other hand, salad is almost free: lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, peppers and onion add up to about 15 kcal for a 6-inch, and jalapeños or pickles less than 1 kcal.

On a footlong, everything doubles. Choosing Chipotle Southwest instead of yoghurt sauce means 88 kcal more, and an extra portion of Chipotle Southwest plus cheddar adds 216 kcal to a footlong.

The cookie is part of the Subway ritual, and it counts almost as much as a small sandwich. In France, the official sheet gives 232 kcal per cookie, whatever the flavour (double chocolate, macadamia nut, raspberry cheesecake, chocolate candies). In Germany, the 45 g cookies range from 193 to 215 kcal. Two French cookies (464 kcal) equal a turkey footlong (458 kcal).

The other desserts on the French menu go further: 240 kcal for the chocolate doughnut and 323 kcal for the brownie. On the sides, waffle fries (Gauf’fries) bring 184 kcal per 100 g, an identical value on the German sheet, 4 rösti 125 kcal and 4 Crousti Chicken pieces 199 kcal.

The drink, finally, can weigh as much as a dessert: a 500 ml bottle of Pepsi is 143 kcal according to the German sheet, against 2 kcal for the zero-sugar version. The French sheet does not list calories for drinks.

A Subway meal adds up a sandwich, a side or dessert and a drink. Depending on your choices, the total can vary more than sixfold. The table shows four typical meals, calculated with the German sheet so that every number comes from the same document. In France, the maths is the same: a tuna footlong (814 kcal) and a cookie (232 kcal) already reach 1,046 kcal before the drink.

To put these totals in context, the European Union uses a reference intake of 2,000 kcal a day for an adult on food labels. A 6-inch meal with a cookie and a soft drink is a good third of that, an indulgent footlong meal about 80%.

Salt deserves a look too. The WHO recommends staying under 5 g of salt a day. An Italian B.M.T. footlong contains 4.6 g according to the German sheet, and The BBQ Master footlong 8.8 g: more than a whole day’s limit in a single sandwich.

At Subway you build your own sandwich, and that is an advantage. Using the German sheet, we calculated three 6-inch subs that all start from the same salad base (lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, peppers, onion). The first keeps as much protein as possible for as few calories as possible. The second keeps the same chicken but switches the bread, adds cheese and takes a sweeter sauce. The third piles on the indulgent options.

The result speaks for itself: the indulgent sub costs twice the calories of the light one for barely more protein. With 26 g of protein, the light 6-inch already covers a good share of what you need at one meal; to see where you stand, read our guide on how much protein you need per day.