Web/CSS/visibility

The visibility CSS property shows or hides an element without changing the layout of a document. The property can also hide rows or columns in a <table>.

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To both hide an element and remove it from the document layout, set the display property to none instead of using visibility.

Syntax

/* Keyword values */
visibility: visible;
visibility: hidden;
visibility: collapse;

/* Global values */
visibility: inherit;
visibility: initial;
visibility: unset;

The visibility property is specified as one of the keyword values listed below.

Values

visible

The element box is visible.

hidden

The element box is invisible (not drawn), but still affects layout as normal. Descendants of the element will be visible if they have visibility set to visible. The element cannot receive focus (such as when navigating through tab indexes).

collapse

;* For <table> rows, columns, column groups, and row groups, the row(s) or column(s) are hidden and the space they would have occupied is removed (as if display: none were applied to the column/row of the table). However, the size of other rows and columns is still calculated as though the cells in the collapsed row(s) or column(s) are present. This value allows for the fast removal of a row or column from a table without forcing the recalculation of widths and heights for the entire table.

• Collapsed flex items are hidden, and the space they would have occupied is removed.
• For XUL elements, the computed size of the element is always zero, regardless of other styles that would normally affect the size, although margins still take effect.
• For other elements, collapse is treated the same as hidden.

Accessibility concerns

Using a visibility value of hidden on an element will remove it from the accessibility tree. This will cause the element and all its descendant elements to no longer be announced by screen reading technology.

Interpolation

Visibility values are interpolable between visible and not-visible. One of the start or ending values must therefore be visible or no interpolation can happen. The value is interpolated as a discrete step, where values of the timing function between 0 and 1 map to visible and other values of the timing function (which occur only at the start/end of the transition or as a result of cubic-bezier() functions with y values outside of [0, 1]) map to the closer endpoint.

Notes

• Support for visibility: collapse is missing or partially incorrect in some modern browsers. It may not be correctly treated like visibility: hidden on elements other than table rows and columns.
• visibility: collapse may change the layout of a table if the table has nested tables within the cells that are collapsed, unless visibility: visible is specified explicitly on nested tables.

Formal definition

Initial value	visible
Applies to	all elements
Inherited	yes
Computed value	as specified
Animation type	a visibility

Formal syntax

visible | hidden | collapse

Examples

Basic example

HTML

<p class="visible">The first paragraph is visible.</p>
<p class="not-visible">The second paragraph is NOT visible.</p>
<p class="visible">The third paragraph is visible. Notice the second paragraph is still occupying space.</p>

CSS

.visible {
  visibility: visible;
}

.not-visible {
  visibility: hidden;
}

Table example

HTML

<table>
  <tr>
    <td>1.1</td>
    <td class="collapse">1.2</td>
    <td>1.3</td>
  </tr>
  <tr class="collapse">
    <td>2.1</td>
    <td>2.2</td>
    <td>2.3</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>3.1</td>
    <td>3.2</td>
    <td>3.3</td>
  </tr>
</table>

CSS

.collapse {
  visibility: collapse;
}

table {
  border: 1px solid red;
}

td {
  border: 1px solid gray;
}

Specifications

Specification	Status	Comment
CSS Flexible Box Layout ModuleThe definition of 'visibility' in that specification.	Candidate Recommendation	Defines the collapse value as it applies to flex items.
CSS Level 2 (Revision 1)The definition of 'visibility' 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
visibility	Chrome Full support 1	Edge Full support 12	Firefox Full support 1	IE Full support 4 Notes' Full support 4 Notes' Notes' Internet Explorer doesn't support visibility: initial. Notes' Up to Internet Explorer 7, descendants of hidden elements will still be invisible even if they have visibility set to visible.	Opera Full support 4	Safari Full support 1	WebView Android Full support 1	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
collapse	Chrome Full support 1 Notes' Full support 1 Notes' Notes' Chrome treats visibility: collapse like hidden, leaving a white gap. Notes' Chrome supports the collapse value only on <tr>, <thead>, <tbody>, and <tfoot>, but not on <col> and <colgroup> elements.	Edge Full support 12	Firefox Full support 1 Notes' Full support 1 Notes' Notes' Firefox doesn't hide borders when hiding <col> and <colgroup> elements if border-collapse: collapse is set.	IE Full support 10	Opera Full support 4 Notes' Full support 4 Notes' Notes' Opera treats visibility: collapse like hidden, leaving a white gap. Notes' Opera supports the collapse value only on <tr>, <thead>, <tbody>, and <tfoot>, but not on <col> and <colgroup> elements.	Safari Full support 1.3 Notes' Full support 1.3 Notes' Notes' Safari treats visibility: collapse like hidden, leaving a white gap. Notes' Safari supports the collapse value only on <tr>, <thead>, <tbody>, and <tfoot>, but not on <col> and <colgroup> elements.	WebView Android Full support ≤37 Notes' Full support ≤37 Notes' Notes' WebView treats visibility: collapse like hidden, leaving a white gap. Notes' WebView supports the collapse value only on <tr>, <thead>, <tbody>, and <tfoot>, but not on <col> and <colgroup> elements.	Chrome Android Full support 18 Notes' Full support 18 Notes' Notes' Chrome treats visibility: collapse like hidden, leaving a white gap. Notes' Chrome supports the collapse value only on <tr>, <thead>, <tbody>, and <tfoot>, but not on <col> and <colgroup> elements.	Firefox Android Full support 4 Notes' Full support 4 Notes' Notes' Firefox doesn't hide borders when hiding <col> and <colgroup> elements if border-collapse: collapse is set.	Opera Android Full support 10.1 Notes' Full support 10.1 Notes' Notes' Opera treats visibility: collapse like hidden, leaving a white gap. Notes' Opera supports the collapse value only on <tr>, <thead>, <tbody>, and <tfoot>, but not on <col> and <colgroup> elements.	Safari iOS Full support 1 Notes' Full support 1 Notes' Notes' Safari treats visibility: collapse like hidden, leaving a white gap. Notes' Safari supports the collapse value only on <tr>, <thead>, <tbody>, and <tfoot>, but not on <col> and <colgroup> elements.	Samsung Internet Android Full support 1.0 Notes' Full support 1.0 Notes' Notes' Samsung Internet treats visibility: collapse like hidden, leaving a white gap. Notes' Samsung Internet supports the collapse value only on <tr>, <thead>, <tbody>, and <tfoot>, but not on <col> and <colgroup> elements.

Legend

Full support  

Full support

See implementation notes.'

See implementation notes.

See also

• display

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