Web/HTML/Element/br

The HTML   element produces a line break in text (carriage-return). It is useful for writing a poem or an address, where the division of lines is significant.

The source for this interactive example is stored in a GitHub repository. If you'd like to contribute to the interactive examples project, please clone https://github.com/mdn/interactive-examples and send us a pull request.

As you can see from the above example, a   element is included at each point where we want the text to break. The text after the   begins again at the start of the next line of the text block.

Note: Do not use   to create margins between paragraphs; wrap them in  elements and use the CSS margin property to control their size.

Attributes

This element's attributes include the global attributes.

Deprecated attributes

clear: Indicates where to begin the next line after the break.

Styling with CSS

The   element has a single, well-defined purpose — to create a line break in a block of text. As such, it has no dimensions or visual output of its own, and there is very little you can do to style it.

You can set a margin on   elements themselves to increase the spacing between the lines of text in the block, but this is a bad practice — you should use the line-height property that was designed for that purpose.

Examples

Simple br

In the following example we use   elements to create line breaks between the different lines of a postal address:

Mozilla<br>
331 E. Evelyn Avenue<br>
Mountain View, CA<br>
94041<br>
USA<br>

The result looks like so:

Accessibility concerns

Creating separate paragraphs of text using   is not only bad practice, it is problematic for people who navigate with the aid of screen reading technology. Screen readers may announce the presence of the element, but not any content contained within  s. This can be a confusing and frustrating experience for the person using the screen reader.

Use  elements, and use CSS properties like margin to control their spacing.

Technical summary

Content categories	Flow content, phrasing content.
Permitted content	None, it is an empty element.
Tag omission	Must have a start tag, and must not have an end tag. In XHTML documents, write this element as `<br />`.
Permitted parents	Any element that accepts phrasing content.
Implicit ARIA role	No corresponding role
Permitted ARIA roles	`none`, `presentation`
DOM interface	`HTMLBRElement`

Specifications

Specification	Status	Comment
HTML Living StandardThe definition of '<br>' in that specification.	Living Standard
HTML5The definition of '<br>' in that specification.	Recommendation
HTML 4.01 SpecificationThe definition of '<br>' in that specification.	Recommendation

Browser compatibility

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
`br`	Chrome Full support 1	Edge Full support 12	Firefox Full support 1	IE Full support Yes	Opera Full support Yes	Safari Full support Yes	WebView Android Full support Yes	Chrome Android Full support Yes	Firefox Android Full support 4	Opera Android Full support Yes	Safari iOS Full support Yes	Samsung Internet Android Full support Yes
`clear` Deprecated'	Chrome Full support 1	Edge Full support 12	Firefox Full support 1	IE Full support Yes	Opera Full support Yes	Safari Full support Yes	WebView Android Full support Yes	Chrome Android Full support Yes	Firefox Android Full support 4	Opera Android Full support Yes	Safari iOS Full support Yes	Samsung Internet Android Full support Yes

Legend

Full support: Full support
Deprecated. Not for use in new websites.': Deprecated. Not for use in new websites.