HTML <label> Tag

The HTML <label> tag represents a caption to a user interface control (usually a form control, however, it could be any phrasing content).

The <label> element allows you to attach a caption/label to a control so that the user knows what the control is for. For example, an input field that accepts the user's first name might have a label of "First Name: ".

Some browsers enable users to select a radio button or checkbox option by clicking on its <label> element.

Syntax

The <label> tag is written as <label></label> with the label text inserted between the start and end tags.

You can use the <label> tag in one of two ways. You can enclose the associated control within the <label> element's opening and closing tags. Or you can reference the associated element by it's ID using the for attribute.

Like this:

Or this:

Examples

Basic tag usage

In this example, the <label> tag surrounds a radio button form control (<input> element).

The for Attribute

This example has the same result as the above example. The difference is that, in this example, the <label> element doesn't enclose the form control (the form control is not nested inside the <label> tag, like in the above example). Instead, it uses the for attribute to associate the <label> tag with a control.

Attributes

Attributes can be added to an HTML element to provide more information about how the element should appear or behave.

There are 3 kinds of attributes that you can add to your HTML tags: Element-specific, global, and event handler content attributes.

The <label> element accepts the following attributes.

Element-Specific Attributes

This table shows the attributes that are specific to the <label> tag/element.

AttributeDescription
forSpecifies the input control that this label is for. This value must be the same as the value in the input control's "id" attribute.
formSpecifies the ID of a form to which this control belongs.

Possible values:

[The ID of a form element in the element's owner Document]

Global Attributes

The following attributes are standard across all HTML5 elements. Therefore, you can use these attributes with the <label> tag , as well as with all other HTML tags.

For a full explanation of these attributes, see HTML 5 global attributes.

Event Handler Content Attributes

Event handler content attributes enable you to invoke a script from within your HTML. The script is invoked when a certain "event" occurs. Each event handler content attribute deals with a different event.

Below are the standard HTML5 event handler content attributes.

Again, you can use any of these with the <label> element, as well as any other HTML5 element.

For a full explanation of these attributes, see HTML 5 event handler content attributes.

Differences Between HTML 4 & HTML 5

The form attribute is new in HTML5.

To see more detail on the two versions see HTML5 <label> Tag and HTML4 <label> Tag. Also check out the links to the official specifications below.

Template

Here's a template for the <label> tag with all available attributes for the tag (based on HTML5). These are grouped into attribute types, each type separated by a space. In many cases, you will probably only need one or two (if any) attributes. Simply remove the attributes you don't need.

For more information on attributes for this tag, see HTML5 <label> Tag and HTML4 <label> Tag.

Tag Details

For more details about the <label> tag, see HTML5 <label> Tag and HTML4 <label> Tag.

Specifications

Here are the official specifications for the <label> element.

What's the Difference?

W3C creates "snapshot" specifications that don't change once defined. So the HTML5 specification won't change once it becomes an official recommendation. WHATWG on the other hand, develops a "living standard" that is updated on a regular basis. In general, you will probably find that the HTML living standard will be more closely aligned to the current W3C draft than to the HTML5 specification.

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