Highest-Sugar Fruits: 6 of the Sweetest

Short answer: Dried fruits dominate: dates lead at about 66 g of sugar per 100 g, tamarind around 57 g and goji berries about 46 g, because drying removes water and concentrates what's left. Among fresh fruits the figures are far lower — jackfruit near 19 g, figs about 16 g and grapes about 15 g are the sweetest of the everyday ones. Mango and banana, the two most often accused, sit at roughly 14 g and 12 g. The compare table below shows each fruit's real sugar figure side by side.

	🌴 Date	🫘 Tamarind	🍒 Goji	🍈 Jackfruit	🟣 Fig	🍇 Grape
Taste	Deeply sweet — caramel, brown butter, honey, and hints of cinnamon — with flesh from fudge-soft (Medjool) to firm-chewy (Deglet Noor). Fresh yellow Barhi dates are crisp and lightly astringent, a different fruit entirely.	Intensely sour with dark fruity depth — dried apricot, molasses, and citrus in one. Sweet varieties dial the acid down to a tangy date-like snack eaten straight from the pod.	Dried, it's mildly sweet with cranberry tang, tomato-leaf savoriness, and a licorice whisper. Fresh berries are juicier, faintly bitter, and rarely travel.	Ripe pods are intensely aromatic and sweet — banana, pineapple, and bubblegum in one bite, with a satisfying chew. Unripe "green" jackfruit is neutral and fibrous, a texture chameleon for savory cooking.	Honey and berry jam with a green, almost coconut skin note; the interior is soft and seedy-crunchy. Dried figs concentrate to caramel-toffee with a chew. Peak fresh figs are lush to the point of collapse.	Sweet, juicy, and mildly tart with variety-specific aromatics — foxy grape-jelly notes in Concords, lychee-rose in Muscats, literal cotton-candy in the namesake hybrid. Skins add tannic grip.
Type	Tropical & subtropical	Tropical & subtropical	Berry	Tropical & subtropical	Tropical & subtropical	Berry
Peak season	Autumn, Year-round	Spring, Summer	Summer, Autumn	Spring, Summer	Summer, Autumn	Summer, Autumn
Origin	Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf; cultivated 6,000+ years — possibly the oldest orchard crop	Tropical Africa (Sudan region); naturalized in India so long it named itself there ("tamr hindi" — Indian date)	China (Ningxia and the Yellow River valley)	Western Ghats of India	Western Asia and the eastern Mediterranean; cultivated for 11,000+ years — likely pre-dating wheat	South Caucasus (Georgia/Armenia/Iran region), domesticated ~8,000 years ago
Calories (per 100 g)	277	239	349	95	74	69
Sugar (per 100 g)	66.5 g	57.4 g	45.6 g	19.1 g	16.3 g	15.5 g
Vitamin C (per 100 g)	—	3.5 mg	48 mg	13.8 mg	2 mg	3.2 mg
Fiber (per 100 g)	6.7 g	5.1 g	13 g	1.5 g	2.9 g	0.9 g
Potassium (per 100 g)	696 mg	628 mg	—	448 mg	232 mg	191 mg
Typical price	Mid	Budget	Mid	Budget	Premium	Budget

Fruit sugar is one of the most-searched and least-understood numbers in nutrition — mostly because the fruits that top the ranking are not the ones people suspect. These six are among the sweetest, and the table below lists each one’s real sugar figure per 100 g so you can compare them directly.

The top of the list is dried fruit, and that is not a coincidence. Dates lead at roughly 66 g of sugar per 100 g — more than half the fruit’s weight — with tamarind near 57 g and goji berries about 46 g. Drying removes water and leaves the sugar behind, so a dried fruit’s figure is concentrated several times over compared with the same fruit fresh. A handful of less familiar dried pod fruits sit in the same territory: carob around 38 g, and African locust bean and desert date near 40 g.

Among fruits you’d eat fresh, the numbers drop sharply. Jackfruit is the sweetest common one at about 19 g, followed by figs near 16 g and grapes around 15 g — which is why grapes are the fresh fruit most often flagged in low-sugar diets.

The more useful finding is which fruits aren’t here. Mango (13.7 g) and banana (12.2 g), the two most commonly accused of being sugar bombs, sit below grapes and barely above cherries. Their reputation comes from density and portion size, not concentration. And whole fruit’s sugar arrives wrapped in fibre and water, which is why dietary guidelines exclude it from added-sugar limits — a distinction that matters far more than the ranking itself.

Nutrition figures are per 100 g of edible portion and vary by variety, ripeness and growing conditions. This is general information, not medical or dietary advice; if you are managing diabetes or another condition, talk to a qualified professional.

Frequently asked questions

Which fruit has the most sugar?

Dates, at roughly 66 g of sugar per 100 g — more than half their weight. Tamarind follows near 57 g and goji berries about 46 g. All three are eaten dried or semi-dried, which is the whole reason the numbers are so high: drying removes water and concentrates the sugar that remains. A few less familiar dried pod fruits sit in the same band, including carob at about 38 g and African locust bean and desert date near 40 g.

Is mango or banana actually high in sugar?

Less than their reputation suggests. Mango is about 13.7 g of sugar per 100 g and banana about 12.2 g — close to cherries (12.8 g) and below grapes (15.5 g) or figs (16.3 g). Both are moderate fresh fruits, not outliers. What makes a banana feel sugary is its density and portion size rather than its concentration.

Does the sugar in fruit count the same as added sugar?

Nutritionally the molecules are the same, but the package is not. Whole fruit delivers its sugar alongside fibre, water and micronutrients, which slows absorption — dietary guidelines around the world exempt whole fruit from added-sugar limits for that reason. Dried fruit and juice are the exceptions worth watching, since drying concentrates the sugar and juicing removes the fibre.

Which fruits are lowest in sugar?

At the other end, ash gourd, bitter melon, watermelon and chayote all sit at or below about 6 g per 100 g. Avocado is the extreme case at 0.7 g. See our companion list of the lowest-sugar fruits for the full ranking.