How many lights do you need for your Christmas tree? This is the experts’ golden rule that never fails

Unlike the rest of Christmas decor, when it comes to Christmas tree lights there is such a thing as right and wrong. The style and volume of your Christmas decorations is up to personal preference but Christmas lights need to adhere to a formula to reach the desired effect. Which begs the questions – how many lights do I need for my Christmas tree then?

Nobody wants to get home with the best Christmas lights they just bought only to find out they are either too short or too sparse to cover their tree. That’s the real nightmare before Christmas!

But luckily, there is an easy way to prevent this from happening as we turned to our Christmas lights and tree experts to give us some advice on the matter. This is the golden rule that they came back with, which they always adhere to for a well-covered, illuminated Christmas tree. 

How many lights do I need for my Christmas tree?

Figuring out where to buy Christmas lights and what kind to get (smart? Twinkling? Coloured?) is only part of the task at hand. The amount of light bulbs and the length of the lights also need to be accounted for. And there is a strict but simple formula you should follow to get it right.

‘We recommend around 100 bulbs for every two feet of the tree,’ says Ben Wightman, product expert at Christmas Tree World. ‘This means that if you have a 6ft artificial Christmas tree, you'll need a string of 300 LEDs to light up your tree perfectly.’

He adds, ‘It’s important to note that this is the minimum number of lights you will need to cover your tree. You can add more if you like a fuller look, but going below the recommended number of lights could make your tree look a little sparse.’

Emily Kelsey, PR assistant at Lights4Fun, applies a similar formula to the desired length of your Christmas tree lights to cover your best artificial Christmas tree with. ‘We recommend using 300 bulbs or 15 metres of lights for decorating a 6ft Christmas tree. If you have space for a larger tree we’d suggest for every extra foot of height, simply adding another 5 metres of lights, so for a 7ft tree, we’d recommend using 20 metres of lights. Our golden rule is 100 bulbs or 5 metres of lights per 2ft of Christmas tree.’

While 6ft to 7ft is the average go-to Christmas tree size in the UK, if you’re planning to have a smaller tree as short as 2ft, the experts encourage you to still go all out. 

‘Generally, small Christmas trees can range from 2ft to around 4ft in height. Decorating a smaller tree can feel like more of a challenge, due to the smaller canvas you have, but small trees don’t need to be simple! We recommend still going all out and adorning those smaller trees. We recommend around 100 lights for a 2ft tree and 200 lights for a 4ft one,’ Ben advises. 

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Now let there be light on that tree of yours! A sufficient amount that is.