background-origin

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.

The background-origin CSS property sets the background's origin: from the border start, inside the border, or inside the padding.

Try it

Note that background-origin is ignored when background-attachment is fixed.

Syntax

css
/* Keyword values */
background-origin: border-box;
background-origin: padding-box;
background-origin: content-box;

/* Global values */
background-origin: inherit;
background-origin: initial;
background-origin: revert;
background-origin: revert-layer;
background-origin: unset;

The background-origin property is specified as one of the keyword values listed below.

Values

border-box

The background is positioned relative to the border box.

padding-box

The background is positioned relative to the padding box.

content-box

The background is positioned relative to the content box.

Formal definition

Initial valuepadding-box
Applies toall elements. It also applies to ::first-letter and ::first-line.
Inheritedno
Computed valueas specified
Animation typea repeatable list

Formal syntax

background-origin = 
  <visual-box>#  

<visual-box> = 
  content-box  |
  padding-box  |
  border-box

Examples

Setting background origins

css
.example {
  border: 10px double;
  padding: 10px;
  background: url("image.jpg");
  background-position: center left;
  background-origin: content-box;
}
css
#example2 {
  border: 4px solid black;
  padding: 10px;
  background: url("image.gif");
  background-repeat: no-repeat;
  background-origin: border-box;
}
css
div {
  background-image: url("logo.jpg"), url("main-back.png"); /* Applies two images to the background */
  background-position:
    top right,
    0px 0px;
  background-origin: content-box, padding-box;
}

Using two gradients

In this example the box has a thick dotted border. The first gradient uses the padding-box as the background-origin and therefore the background sits inside the border. The second uses the content-box and so only displays behind the content.

css
.box {
  margin: 10px 0;
  color: #fff;
  background: linear-gradient(
      90deg,
      rgb(131 58 180 / 100%) 0%,
      rgb(253 29 29 / 60%) 60%,
      rgb(252 176 69 / 100%) 100%
    ),
    radial-gradient(circle, rgb(255 255 255 / 100%) 0%, rgb(0 0 0 / 100%) 28%);
  border: 20px dashed black;
  padding: 20px;
  width: 400px;
  background-origin: padding-box, content-box;
  background-repeat: no-repeat;
}
html
<div class="box">Hello!</div>

Specifications

Specification
CSS Backgrounds and Borders Module Level 3
# the-background-origin

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser

See also