<style>: The Style Information element

The <style> HTML element contains style information for a document, or part of a document. It contains CSS, which is applied to the contents of the document containing the <style> element.

Try it

The <style> element must be included inside the <head> of the document. In general, it is better to put your styles in external stylesheets and apply them using <link> elements.

If you include multiple <style> and <link> elements in your document, they will be applied to the DOM in the order they are included in the document — make sure you include them in the correct order, to avoid unexpected cascade issues.

In the same manner as <link> elements, <style> elements can include media attributes that contain media queries, allowing you to selectively apply internal stylesheets to your document depending on media features such as viewport width.

Attributes

This element includes the global attributes.

media

This attribute defines which media the style should be applied to. Its value is a media query, which defaults to all if the attribute is missing.

nonce

A cryptographic nonce (number used once) used to allow inline styles in a style-src Content-Security-Policy. The server must generate a unique nonce value each time it transmits a policy. It is critical to provide a nonce that cannot be guessed as bypassing a resource's policy is otherwise trivial.

title

This attribute specifies alternative style sheet sets.

blocking Experimental

This attribute explicitly indicates that certain operations should be blocked on the fetching of critical subresources. @import-ed stylesheets are generally considered as critical subresources, whereas background-image and fonts are not.

  • render: The rendering of content on the screen is blocked.

Deprecated attributes

type Deprecated

This attribute should not be provided: if it is, the only permitted values are the empty string or a case-insensitive match for text/css.

Examples

A simple stylesheet

In the following example, we apply a very simple stylesheet to a document:

html

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en-US">
  <head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8" />
    <title>Test page</title>
    <style>
      p {
        color: red;
      }
    </style>
  </head>
  <body>
    <p>This is my paragraph.</p>
  </body>
</html>

Result

Multiple style elements

In this example we've included two <style> elements — notice how the conflicting declarations in the later <style> element override those in the earlier one, if they have equal specificity.

html

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en-US">
  <head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8" />
    <title>Test page</title>
    <style>
      p {
        color: white;
        background-color: blue;
        padding: 5px;
        border: 1px solid black;
      }
    </style>
    <style>
      p {
        color: blue;
        background-color: yellow;
      }
    </style>
  </head>
  <body>
    <p>This is my paragraph.</p>
  </body>
</html>

Result

Including a media query

In this example we build on the previous one, including a media attribute on the second <style> element so it is only applied when the viewport is less than 500px in width.

html

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en-US">
  <head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8" />
    <title>Test page</title>
    <style>
      p {
        color: white;
        background-color: blue;
        padding: 5px;
        border: 1px solid black;
      }
    </style>
    <style media="all and (max-width: 500px)">
      p {
        color: blue;
        background-color: yellow;
      }
    </style>
  </head>
  <body>
    <p>This is my paragraph.</p>
  </body>
</html>

Result

Technical summary

Content categories Metadata content, and if the scoped attribute is present: flow content.
Permitted content Text content matching the type attribute, that is text/css.
Tag omission Neither tag is omissible.
Permitted parents Any element that accepts metadata content.
Implicit ARIA role No corresponding role
Permitted ARIA roles No role permitted
DOM interface HTMLStyleElement

Specifications

Specification
HTML Standard
# the-style-element

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser

See also