Women's UFC Weight Classes: All Four Divisions

The women’s UFC has four weight classes: strawweight (115 lb / 52.2 kg), flyweight (125 lb / 56.7 kg), bantamweight (135 lb / 61.2 kg) and featherweight (145 lb / 65.8 kg). All four sit at the lighter end of the promotion’s overall ladder, and where they overlap with the men’s divisions the limits are identical.

Women’s MMA is younger than the men’s game inside the UFC, and its division structure reflects where the talent is deepest rather than the full physical range of female athletes. Here are the four classes in order, with limits in pounds and kilograms, and how they compare in depth and competitiveness.

The four women’s UFC divisions

Each limit is the maximum a fighter can weigh at the official weigh-in, with a one-pound allowance for non-title bouts and no margin in championship fights.

Division	Weight limit
Strawweight	115 lb (52.2 kg)
Flyweight	125 lb (56.7 kg)
Bantamweight	135 lb (61.2 kg)
Featherweight	145 lb (65.8 kg)

That is the whole ladder. The UFC has never contested a women’s division above featherweight, so these four cover the entire female roster.

Where the women’s ladder sits against the men’s

The women’s classes occupy the bottom of the UFC’s combined weight range. Strawweight at 115 lb is the lowest weight the promotion contests for either gender — the UFC runs no men’s strawweight — while the men’s ladder climbs all the way to a 265 lb heavyweight. Our full UFC weight class breakdown lays both ladders side by side.

Where the two overlap, the limits match exactly. A women’s flyweight and a men’s flyweight both make 125 lb; the same is true at bantamweight (135) and featherweight (145). The pound figures are shared across the wider MMA weight classes; what differs is which divisions each gender has the depth to sustain.

Depth and competitiveness by division

The four classes are not equally active. Strawweight and flyweight are the deepest, with the longest lists of ranked contenders and the most frequent title turnover — these are the divisions where a champion faces a genuine queue of challengers. Bantamweight is competitive but has, at times, been dominated for long stretches by a single champion, thinning the sense of a live title race.

Featherweight is the outlier. It has never had the roster depth of the lighter classes and has often leaned on bantamweights moving up for a specific fight, which is why its activity has been the least consistent of the four. That depth problem is the main reason the UFC has not added divisions above it.

Making weight in the women’s game

Fighters hit their limit at the morning weigh-in, then rehydrate over the following day, so a strawweight who scales 115 lb steps into the cage heavier. The rebound depends on how aggressive the cut was, and the harder the squeeze the more the fighter relies on the weight-cutting methods common across combat sports. Once the fight starts, the judging follows the same criteria as the men’s — our guide to how MMA scoring works covers effective striking, grappling and control.

For the athletes who defined these divisions, our roundup of the best female MMA athletes profiles the champions whose skill set the standard across strawweight, flyweight and bantamweight.

The short version: the women’s UFC runs four divisions — strawweight, flyweight, bantamweight and featherweight, from 115 to 145 lb — sharing limits with the men where they overlap, with the lighter classes the deepest and featherweight the thinnest.