Walking or running: which burns more fat?

Short answer

Running burns more calories, about 2.8 times as much as walking in the same 30 minutes. But in trials, what decided fat loss was how many minutes a week people exercised, not whether they walked or ran.

Walking or running: which burns more fat?
'Running is harder, so it burns more fat' — is that right?
Some say running is harder, so you lose more. Others say the same distance burns the same calories either way. We checked which is right, starting with calories.
Over the same distance, running burns more
41% more over 1.6 km
When 24 people walked and ran 1.6 km, running used about 115 kcal and walking about 81 kcal. Another study of 30 people found that, counting the 30 minutes after exercise, running used about 159 kcal and walking about 111 kcal.
Over the same time, the gap grows
About 2.8 times in 30 minutes
Using that study's speeds, walking 30 minutes at about 5 km/h burns about 129 kcal, while running 30 minutes at about 10 km/h burns about 365 kcal. Running also covers twice the distance in the same time, so the calorie gap widens.
So does fat drop that much faster too?
Walking and running the same distance showed no difference
In an 8-month trial with 120 people, groups that walked or jogged 19.2 km a week lost 2.0 kg and 2.5 kg of fat, with no difference between them. The group that jogged 32 km a week lost 4.8 kg.
What decided it was time
Each 30 minutes a week meant 0.52 kg more lost
A 2024 analysis of 116 trials with 6,880 people found that each extra 30 minutes of cardio a week cut body weight by 0.52 kg and body fat by 0.37 percentage points. Intensity made no difference, and losses kept growing up to 300 minutes a week.
Does walking alone work?
Brisk walking cut 2.59 kg of fat
An analysis pooling 22 brisk walking trials found body weight fell by 2.13 kg and body fat by 2.59 kg. Lean mass (muscle and everything except fat) actually rose by 0.29 kg.
Bottom line: running wins on calories, time wins on fat
Walkers just need to go longer
In the same 30 minutes, running burns about 2.8 times what walking does. But in trials, fat loss depended on weekly minutes more than the type of exercise. Brisk walking for about 85 minutes matches 30 minutes of running, and going past 150 minutes a week brought clear drops in waist size and body fat.