How Much Sugar Is in a Tangerine?
A medium tangerine has about 9 g of natural sugar — smaller and easier to peel than an orange, with a similar sugar profile.
in 1 medium (88 g) · about 2.1 teaspoons
- Per serving
- 9 g
- Per 100 g
- 10.6 g
- Type
- Natural sugar
- In teaspoons
- ≈ 2.1 tsp
Fine in a portion — worth keeping an eye on.
A medium tangerine carries about 9 g of sugar, a touch less than a whole orange simply because it's smaller. It's also easier to peel with your hands, which is exactly why portion control gets tricky — a snack-size fruit invites eating two or three at once.
Two tangerines edge close to what a single orange delivers, so treat a second one as a real second serving. Whole, they're still a solid low-effort fruit choice; just skip the temptation to juice them, which strips the fibre the same way it does for oranges.
Lower-sugar swaps
- Peel and eat one at a time rather than a whole bag in a sitting
- Choose the whole fruit over orange juice if you want the citrus flavour without the sugar spike
Frequently asked questions
- Is a tangerine lower in sugar than an orange?
- Slightly — a medium tangerine has about 9 g versus roughly 12 g for a medium orange, mostly because tangerines are smaller.
- Is it easy to overeat tangerine sugar?
- Yes — because they're small and easy to peel, eating two or three in one sitting can quietly double or triple the sugar total.
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Sugar values from USDA FoodData Central; actual amounts vary by brand, ripeness, and recipe. Last updated 2026-08-09.