padding-top

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 padding-top CSS property sets the height of the padding area on the top of an element.

Try it

An element's padding area is the space between its content and its border.

The effect of the CSS padding-top property on the element box

Note: The padding property can be used to set paddings on all four sides of an element with a single declaration.

Syntax

css
/* <length> values */
padding-top: 0.5em;
padding-top: 0;
padding-top: 2cm;

/* <percentage> value */
padding-top: 10%;

/* Global values */
padding-top: inherit;
padding-top: initial;
padding-top: revert;
padding-top: revert-layer;
padding-top: unset;

The padding-top property is specified as a single value chosen from the list below. Unlike margins, negative values are not allowed for padding.

Values

<length>

The size of the padding as a fixed value. Must be nonnegative.

<percentage>

The size of the padding as a percentage, relative to the inline size (width in a horizontal language, defined by writing-mode) of the containing block. Must be nonnegative.

Formal definition

Initial value0
Applies toall elements, except table-row-group, table-header-group, table-footer-group, table-row, table-column-group and table-column. It also applies to ::first-letter and ::first-line.
Inheritedno
Percentagesrefer to the width of the containing block
Computed valuethe percentage as specified or the absolute length
Animation typea length

Formal syntax

padding-top = 
<length-percentage [0,∞]>

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

Examples

Setting top padding using pixels and percentages

css
.content {
  padding-top: 5%;
}
.side-box {
  padding-top: 10px;
}

Specifications

Specification
CSS Box Model Module Level 3
# padding-physical

Browser compatibility

Report problems with this compatibility data on GitHub
desktopmobile
Chrome
Edge
Firefox
Opera
Safari
Chrome Android
Firefox for Android
Opera Android
Safari on iOS
Samsung Internet
WebView Android
WebView on iOS
padding-top

Legend

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Full support
Full support

See also