Office Chairs for Tall People in Australia: A Fit Guide
Most advice for tall office workers stops at “get a chair with a high seat”. That is a third of the answer, and not the most important third. Below is a fit guide built only on seat height and seat depth ranges published on our own product pages, with the figures attributed so you can check them.
Where a chair does not have a published figure, we say so rather than estimating. If you are 195 cm and about to spend a thousand dollars, an estimate is worth nothing to you.
The three measurements that decide fit
1. Seat height, which is about your lower leg, not your total height
The target is simple: feet flat on the floor, knees at roughly ninety degrees, thighs approximately parallel to the floor with no pressure ridge behind the knee. What sets that height is the distance from the floor to the back of your knee with a shoe on — your popliteal height — not how tall you are overall. Two people of the same height can differ by several centimetres here depending on how much of that height is leg and how much is torso.
This matters because a very tall person with a long torso and average legs may need almost no extra seat height and a great deal of extra backrest. Measure the leg, not the person.
If the seat cannot go high enough, the knees rise above the hips, the pelvis rolls back, and the lumbar curve flattens no matter how good the lumbar support is. The chair cannot fix a posture the seat height has already forced.
2. Seat depth, which is the one tall buyers get wrong
Long femurs need a long seat pan. The test: with your back against the backrest, you want two to three finger widths of clearance between the front edge of the seat and the back of your knee.
Too shallow and you lose thigh support, which pushes you to perch forward off the backrest and defeats the lumbar support entirely. Too deep and the front edge presses into the back of the knee, so you slide the hips forward to escape it — and again end up off the backrest. Both errors have the same visible symptom, and both are far more common in tall users than a seat that will not go high enough.
This is why a seat slider matters more than a tall gas lift for most tall buyers. A chair with a fixed seat depth is a fixed decision.
3. Backrest height and headrest position
A long torso needs support above the shoulder blades, and a headrest set for a 175 cm user sits behind a 195 cm user’s neck rather than their head, where it does nothing except get in the way. Check the published backrest height and, if a headrest matters to you, check its adjustment range specifically rather than assuming that “adjustable” means enough.
Published seat height and seat depth ranges
Every figure in this table is taken from the specifications published on the linked product page.
| Chair | Seat height | Seat depth | Backrest height |
|---|---|---|---|
| HAG Capisco Puls 8010 / 8020, standard 200 mm lift | 455–620 mm | 400–470 mm | 470 mm |
| HAG SoFi Mesh, 200 mm gas lift | 450–640 mm | 380–460 mm | 720 mm back pads |
| HAG SoFi Mesh, 165 mm gas lift | 400–550 mm | 380–460 mm | 720 mm back pads |
| Kyoto Ergonomic Task Chair | 470–560 mm | 490–540 mm | 560 mm; 655–715 mm with headrest |
| Humanscale Liberty Mesh, standard cylinder | 405–535 mm | 420–480 mm | 570 mm |
| Humanscale Liberty Mesh, high cylinder with foot ring | 520–725 mm | 420–480 mm | 570 mm |
| Humanscale World One LM | 397–527 mm | 416 mm mesh seat | Not published |
| RH New Logic 220, standard gas stem | 394–526 mm | 400–499 mm with slide | 620 mm |
| RH Mereo 220 | 410–550 mm | 465 mm, 100 mm slide | 630 mm |
| RH Mereo 300 | 410–550 mm | 465 mm, 100 mm slide | 630 mm |
| Control Master 24/7 | 450–540 mm | 465 mm | 650 mm |
|
RH Secur24 Sold as the BMA Secur24 before BMA Ergonomics merged into RH in January 2025 |
410–535 mm | Seat slider fitted; range not published | 600 mm |
| Herman Miller Aeron | Not published on our pages — contact us | Set by size A/B/C, see below | Not published on our pages |
Two chairs are absent for lack of data rather than lack of merit. We do not publish a seat height for the Herman Miller Aeron or the LiberNovo Omni SE, so we have not invented one. The Omni SE is published as suiting users from 153 to 186 cm, with a recommendation to sit in one first above about 188 cm, and its seat depth is fixed at 45 cm or 48 cm at the time of order and cannot be changed afterwards. For a tall buyer that fixed-depth decision is the whole ball game — ring us before you order.
The Capisco 265 mm tall gas lift
This is the most useful single answer we can give a very tall buyer, and it comes with a real trade-off.
The Capisco gas lift is available in three heights, and our product page publishes a seat height range for each: 150 mm gives 408–540 mm, the standard 200 mm gives 470–655 mm, and the tall 265 mm gives 530–790 mm. It fits the Capisco 8106, the Capisco Puls 8010 and the Puls 8020, and swapping it takes about five minutes with the unblocking tool.
Two caveats worth stating plainly.
First, the tall lift raises the whole range, it does not extend it. A 265 mm cylinder starts at 530 mm and will not come down to where the standard cylinder starts. If you share the chair, or move it between a sit-stand desk and a conventional one, you are gaining height at the top and losing it at the bottom. Our own product note is blunt about this: the tall lift makes the chair very high and is really only for people over about 183 cm or for anyone who wants a high perching position.
Second, the seat pan heights we publish on the Capisco Puls product pages (455–620 mm with the standard 200 mm cylinder) and the ranges on the gas lift accessory page differ slightly, because they are measured on different seat types across the Capisco family. Use the range published on the page for the exact chair and cylinder you are buying, and ask us if the two figures matter to your desk height.
The Capisco is a saddle chair, so it fits tall users by a different route as well: perching raises the hips relative to the knees and opens the hip angle, which suits long femurs better than a conventional seat pan does. If you have never sat on one, do not order one sight unseen.
Herman Miller Aeron sizing
The Aeron comes in three sizes, A, B and C, and they are genuinely different frames rather than one frame with different adjustments. The figure we can verify for each is the weight capacity:
| Size | Weight capacity |
|---|---|
| Size A (small) | 136 kg |
| Size B (medium) | 159 kg |
| Size C (large) | 181 kg |
We are not going to publish height ranges for the three sizes, because we do not hold a figure we can stand behind. Size B suits the large majority of adults; size C exists for larger and taller frames. That is the honest limit of what we can tell you from a table, and it is exactly the case where sitting in both beats reading about either. Herman Miller chairs bought through us carry Chair Dinkum’s own 12-year warranty on frame, tilt mechanism, gas lift, base, armrest structure and suspension materials, including 24/7 use — see our warranty page.
When to stop reading and come to the showroom
Specifications answer some questions completely and others not at all. Come to Pyrmont if any of these apply:
- You are over about 190 cm. Above that height the published ranges stop being decisive and the interaction between seat depth, backrest height and headrest position takes over.
- Your leg length is unusual for your height in either direction. The seat depth decision is the one that cannot be reversed on a fixed-depth chair.
- You are choosing between Aeron sizes B and C.
- You are considering a Capisco with the tall lift and have never used a saddle chair.
- You want a headrest and are tall. Headrest range is the specification most likely to disappoint at the top of the height distribution.
Our showroom is at 1/209 Harris Street, Pyrmont NSW 2009, by appointment. Bring the shoes you actually wear at work and know your desk height — both change the answer. Details at contact us, or browse the full ergonomic task chair range first.
Frequently asked questions
What seat height do I need if I am 190 cm tall?
There is no single answer, because seat height is set by your lower leg length rather than your total height. Measure from the floor to the back of your knee while wearing work shoes and sitting with your feet flat. That figure, give or take a centimetre, is your target seat height. Then check it against the published ranges above.
Which chair in your range goes highest?
On published figures, a HAG Capisco fitted with the 265 mm tall gas lift reaches 530–790 mm, and the Humanscale Liberty Mesh with the high cylinder and foot ring reaches 520–725 mm. Both are intended for high or sit-stand desks, and neither will come down as low as its standard configuration.
Does the tall Capisco gas lift also go as low as the standard one?
No. The 265 mm cylinder shifts the whole range upward: it starts at 530 mm where the standard 200 mm cylinder starts at 470 mm. If more than one person uses the chair, or you move between desk heights, that lost low end matters.
Is seat depth or seat height more important for a tall person?
Seat depth causes more problems in practice. A seat that is too shallow for long femurs pushes you forward off the backrest, which cancels out the lumbar support you paid for. Look for a seat slider. The Kyoto publishes 490–540 mm, the RH New Logic 220 publishes 400–499 mm with its slide, and the RH Mereo range has a 100 mm slide.
Which Aeron size should a tall person buy?
Size B suits most adults and size C is the large frame. We publish weight capacities of 136 kg for A, 159 kg for B and 181 kg for C, but we do not publish height ranges for the sizes because we do not hold a figure we can verify. If you are choosing between B and C, sit in both.
