Plantar wart or callus? How to tell, and treatments that work

Both are rough, thick patches on the bottom of the foot, both can hurt, and they’re easy to confuse. But they have different causes and need different treatment, so it’s worth knowing which one you have.

The quick comparison

	Callus	Plantar wart
Cause	Pressure and friction	A virus (HPV)
Where	Over bony, high-pressure spots: ball of the foot, heel, side of the big toe	Anywhere on the sole, including low-pressure areas
Skin lines	Run straight through it	Interrupted around it
Black dots	No	Often (tiny clotted blood vessels)
Pain	Worse with direct pressure	Worse when squeezed from the sides
Spreads?	No	Can spread and multiply

If you pare a callus down, you reach normal skin. If you pare a wart, you often see pinpoint bleeding.

Treating a callus

A callus is your skin protecting itself from pressure, so the fix is to reduce the pressure:

• Shoes with enough room and cushioning. Many people wear shoes that don’t fit their feet, and poor fit is linked to corns and calluses.^[4]
• Pads and inserts that spread pressure more evenly. These have long-term benefits, while over-the-counter salicylic acid gives short-term relief.^[1]
• Gentle filing with a pumice stone after a bath.
• Professional debridement in the office for thick, painful calluses.
• Addressing the cause, such as a bunion, hammertoe or high pressure under a metatarsal, sometimes with custom orthotics. See custom orthotics.

If you have diabetes or poor circulation, don’t cut calluses or use medicated corn pads. A callus with a dark spot of bleeding underneath can hide a developing ulcer and needs to be seen.

Treating a plantar wart

Many warts eventually clear on their own, but plantar warts can be stubborn.^[2]

• Salicylic acid, used consistently for weeks after soaking and filing the wart, is the most studied treatment. Over-the-counter products are a reasonable start.^[2,1]
• Freezing (cryotherapy) is widely used, but for plantar warts it hasn’t outperformed other treatments in pooled studies.^[3]
• Combining salicylic acid with freezing appeared more effective than salicylic acid alone.^[2]
• In-office treatment for warts that don’t respond. See plantar warts.

Common questions

What about corns?

A corn is a small, concentrated callus with a hard core, usually on top of a bent toe or between two toes where they press together. Like calluses, corns come from pressure, and poorly fitting shoes are a common cause.^[4] Roomier shoes, toe pads and treating the toe shape relieve them. See hammertoes.

Is freezing better than salicylic acid for a wart?

Not clearly. In a Cochrane review, freezing and salicylic acid were about equally effective overall, and neither worked as well on the feet as on the hands.^[2] Using them together appeared to work better than salicylic acid alone.

Can a callus turn into a wart?

No. They have different causes: pressure for a callus, a virus for a wart. But a wart can have thick skin over it that looks like a callus, which is one reason a “callus” that bleeds in pinpoints when filed, or doesn’t respond to pressure relief, is worth showing us.

Stopping warts from spreading

Wear sandals in communal showers and at the pool, don’t share towels or shoes, keep your feet dry, and don’t pick at warts.

When to see a podiatrist