Web/CSS/Class selectors

The CSS class selector matches elements based on the contents of their class attribute.

/* All elements with class="spacious" */
.spacious {
  margin: 2em;
}

/* All <li> elements with class="spacious" */
li.spacious {
  margin: 2em;
}

/* All <li> elements with a class list that includes both "spacious" and "elegant" */
/* For example, class="elegant retro spacious" */
li.spacious.elegant {
  margin: 2em;
}

Syntax

.class_name { style properties }

Note that this is equivalent to the following attribute selector:

[class~=class_name] { style properties }

Examples

CSS

.red {
  color: #f33;
}

.yellow-bg {
  background: #ffa;
}

.fancy {
  font-weight: bold;
  text-shadow: 4px 4px 3px #77f;
}

HTML

<p class="red">This paragraph has red text.</p>
<p class="red yellow-bg">This paragraph has red text and a yellow background.</p>
<p class="red fancy">This paragraph has red text and "fancy" styling.</p>
<p>This is just a regular paragraph.</p>

Specifications

Specification	Status	Comment
Selectors Level 4The definition of 'class selectors' in that specification.	Working Draft	No changes
Selectors Level 3The definition of 'class selectors' in that specification.	Recommendation
CSS Level 2 (Revision 1)The definition of 'child selectors' in that specification.	Recommendation
CSS Level 1The definition of 'child selectors' in that specification.	Recommendation	Initial definition

Browser compatibility

The compatibility table on this page is generated from structured data. If you'd like to contribute to the data, please check out https://github.com/mdn/browser-compat-data and send us a pull request.

Update compatibility data on GitHub

	Desktop						Mobile
	Chrome	Edge	Firefox	Internet Explorer	Opera	Safari	Android webview	Chrome for Android	Firefox for Android	Opera for Android	Safari on iOS	Samsung Internet
Class selector (.className)	Chrome Full support 1	Edge Full support 12	Firefox Full support 1	IE Full support 3	Opera Full support 3.5	Safari Full support 1	WebView Android Full support ≤37	Chrome Android Full support 18	Firefox Android Full support 4	Opera Android Full support 10.1	Safari iOS Full support 1	Samsung Internet Android Full support 1.0

Legend

Full support  

Full support

Class selectors by Mozilla Contributors is licensed under CC-BY-SA 2.5.