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`margin-inline-start` CSS property

Baseline

Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since January 2020.

* Some parts of this feature may have varying levels of support.

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The margin-inline-start CSS property defines the logical inline start margin of an element, which maps to a physical margin depending on the element's writing mode, directionality, and text orientation. It corresponds to the margin-top, margin-right, margin-bottom, or margin-left property depending on the values defined for writing-mode, direction, and text-orientation.

Try it

margin-inline-start: 20px;
writing-mode: horizontal-tb;

margin-inline-start: 20px;
writing-mode: vertical-rl;

margin-inline-start: 20%;
writing-mode: horizontal-tb;
direction: rtl;

<section id="default-example">
  <div id="container">
    <div class="col">One</div>
    <div class="col transition-all" id="example-element">Two</div>
    <div class="col">Three</div>
  </div>
</section>

#container {
  width: 300px;
  height: 200px;
  display: flex;
  align-content: flex-start;
  justify-content: flex-start;
}

.col {
  width: 33.33%;
  border: solid #ce7777 10px;
  background-color: #2b3a55;
  color: white;
  flex-shrink: 0;
}

#example-element {
  border: solid 10px #ffbf00;
  background-color: #2b3a55;
  unicode-bidi: bidi-override;
}

Syntax

css

/* <length> values */
margin-inline-start: 10px; /* An absolute length */
margin-inline-start: 1em; /* relative to the text size */
margin-inline-start: 5%; /* relative to the nearest block container's width */
margin-inline-start: anchor-size(block);
margin-inline-start: calc(anchor-size(--my-anchor width, 30px) / 4);

/* Keyword value */
margin-inline-start: auto;

/* Global values */
margin-inline-start: inherit;
margin-inline-start: initial;
margin-inline-start: revert;
margin-inline-start: revert-layer;
margin-inline-start: unset;

It relates to margin-block-start, margin-block-end, and margin-inline-end, which define the other margins of the element.

Values

The margin-inline-start property takes the same values as the margin-top property.

Formal definition

Initial value	`0`
Applies to	same as `margin`
Inherited	no
Percentages	depends on layout model
Computed value	if specified as a length, the corresponding absolute length; if specified as a percentage, the specified value; otherwise, `auto`
Animation type	a length

Formal syntax

margin-inline-start = 
  <'margin-top'>  

<margin-top> = 
  <length-percentage>  |
  auto                 |
  <anchor-size()>      

<length-percentage> = 
  <length>      |
  <percentage>  

<anchor-size()> = 
  anchor-size( [ <anchor-name> || <anchor-size> ]? , <length-percentage>? )  

<anchor-name> = 
  <dashed-ident>  

<anchor-size> = 
  width        |
  height       |
  block        |
  inline       |
  self-block   |
  self-inline

Examples

Setting inline start margin

HTML

html

<div>
  <p class="exampleText">Example text</p>
</div>

CSS

css

div {
  background-color: yellow;
  width: 120px;
  height: 120px;
}

.exampleText {
  writing-mode: vertical-lr;
  margin-inline-start: 20px;
  background-color: #c8c800;
}

Result

Specifications

Specification
CSS Logical Properties and Values Module Level 1 # margin-properties

Browser compatibility

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This page was last modified on Sep 16, 2026 by MDN contributors.

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