background-clip

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.

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

The background-clip CSS property sets whether an element's background extends underneath its border box, padding box, or content box.

Try it

background-clip: border-box;

background-clip: padding-box;

background-clip: content-box;

background-clip: text;
color: transparent;
text-shadow: none;

<section id="default-example">
  <div id="example-element">This is the content of the element.</div>
</section>

#example-element {
  background-image: url("/shared-assets/images/examples/leopard.jpg");
  color: white;
  text-shadow: 2px 2px black;
  padding: 20px;
  border: 10px dashed #333333;
  font-size: 2em;
  font-weight: bold;
}

The background is always drawn behind the border, so background-clip: border-box has a visual effect only when the border is partially opaque or has transparent or partially opaque regions. Also, the background-clip: text property has little to no visual effect if the text is fully or partially opaque.

Note: Because the root element has a different background painting area, the background-clip property has no effect when specified on it. See "The backgrounds of special elements."

Note: For documents whose root element is an HTML element: if the computed value of background-image on the root element is none and its background-color is transparent, user agents must instead propagate the computed values of the background properties from that element's first HTML <body> child element. The used values of that <body> element's background properties are their initial values, and the propagated values are treated as if they were specified on the root element. It is recommended that authors of HTML documents specify the canvas background for the <body> element rather than the HTML element.

Syntax

css

/* Keyword values */
background-clip: border-box;
background-clip: padding-box;
background-clip: content-box;
background-clip: text;
background-clip: border-area;

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

Values

border-box: The background extends to the outside edge of the border (but underneath the border in z-ordering).
padding-box: The background extends to the outside edge of the padding. No background is drawn beneath the border.
content-box: The background is painted within (clipped to) the content box.
text: The background is painted within (clipped to) the foreground text.
border-area: The background is painted within (clipped to) the area painted by the border, taking border-width and border-style into account but ignoring any transparency introduced by border-color.

Accessibility

When using background-clip: text, check that the contrast ratio between the background color and the color of the text placed over it is high enough that people experiencing low vision conditions will be able to read the content of the page.

If the background image does not load, this could also lead to the text becoming unreadable. Add a fallback background-color to prevent this from happening, and test without the image.

Consider using feature queries with @supports to test for support of background-clip: text and provide an accessible alternative where it is not supported.

Formal definition

Initial value	`border-box`
Applies to	all elements. It also applies to `::first-letter` and `::first-line`.
Inherited	no
Computed value	as specified
Animation type	a repeatable list

Formal syntax

background-clip = 
  <bg-clip>#  

<bg-clip> = 
  <visual-box>             |
  [ border-area || text ]  

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

Examples

HTML

html

<p class="border-box">The background extends behind the border.</p>
<p class="padding-box">
  The background extends to the inside edge of the border.
</p>
<p class="content-box">
  The background extends only to the edge of the content box.
</p>
<p class="text">The background is clipped to the foreground text.</p>
<p class="border-area">
  The background is clipped to the area painted by the border.
</p>

CSS

css

p {
  border: 0.8em darkviolet;
  border-style: dotted double;
  margin: 1em 0;
  padding: 1.4em;
  background: linear-gradient(60deg, red, yellow, red, yellow, red);
  font: 900 1.2em sans-serif;
  text-decoration: underline;
}

.border-box {
  background-clip: border-box;
}
.padding-box {
  background-clip: padding-box;
}
.content-box {
  background-clip: content-box;
}

.text {
  background-clip: text;
  color: rgb(0 0 0 / 20%);
}

.border-area {
  background-clip: border-area;
  border-color: transparent;
}

Result

Specifications

Specification
CSS Backgrounds and Borders Module Level 3 # background-clip
CSS Backgrounds Module Level 4 # background-clip

Browser compatibility

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This page was last modified on ⁨Aug 13, 2025⁩ by MDN contributors.

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