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GeezerVison is showing developer.mozilla.org — <span> HTML content span element - HTML | MDN

<span> HTML content span element

Baseline
Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since July 2015.

  • See full compatibility
  • Learn more

The <span> HTML element is a generic inline container for phrasing content, which does not inherently represent anything. It can be used to group elements for styling purposes (using the class or id attributes), or because they share attribute values, such as lang. It should be used only when no other semantic element is appropriate. <span> is very much like a <div> element, but <div> is a block-level element whereas a <span> is an inline-level element.

Try it

<p>
  Add the <span class="ingredient">basil</span>,
  <span class="ingredient">pine nuts</span> and
  <span class="ingredient">garlic</span> to a blender and blend into a paste.
</p>

<p>
  Gradually add the <span class="ingredient">olive oil</span> while running the
  blender slowly.
</p>

span.ingredient {
  color: red;
}

Attributes

This element only includes the global attributes.

Example

Example 1

HTML

html
<p><span>Some text</span></p>

Result

Example 2

HTML

html
<li>
  <span>
    <a href="portfolio.html" target="_blank">See my portfolio</a>
  </span>
</li>

CSS

css
li span {
  background: gold;
}

Result

Technical summary

Content categories Flow content, phrasing content.
Permitted content Phrasing content.
Tag omission None, both the starting and ending tag are mandatory.
Permitted parents Any element that accepts phrasing content, or any element that accepts flow content.
Implicit ARIA role No corresponding role
Permitted ARIA roles Any
DOM interface HTMLSpanElement

Specifications

Specification
HTML
# the-span-element

Browser compatibility

See also

  • HTML <div> element

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This page was last modified on Apr 24, 2026 by MDN contributors.

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