<label>

The HTML Label Element (<label>) represents a caption for an item in a user interface. It can be associated with a control either by placing the control element inside the <label> element, or by using the for attribute. Such a control is called the labeled control of the label element. One input can be associated with multiple labels.

It's worth noting, however, that labels are not themselves directly associated with forms. They are only indirectly associated with forms through the controls with which they're associated.

Attributes

This element includes the global attributes.

for

The ID of a labelable form-related element in the same document as the label element. The first such element in the document with an ID matching the value of the for attribute is the labeled control for this label element.

A label element can have both a for attribute and a contained control element, as long as the for attribute points to the contained control element.

form HTML5

The form element with which the label is associated (its form owner). If specified, the value of the attribute is the ID of a <form> element in the same document. This lets you place label elements anywhere within a document, not just as descendants of their form elements.

This content attribute was removed from the HTML specification on April 28, 2016. However, scripts still have access to a read-only HTMLLabelElement.form attribute; it returns the form of which the label's associated control is a member, or null if the label is not associated with a control or the control isn't part of a form.

Examples

Simple label example

<label>Click me <input type="text"></label>

Using the "for" attribute

<label for="username">Click me</label>
<input type="text" id="username">

Specifications

Browser compatibility

[1] Starting with Gecko 8.0 (Firefox 8.0 / Thunderbird 8.0 / SeaMonkey 2.5), a bubbling click event triggers at most one <label>, and the synthetic click event cannot trigger additional <label>s. In Gecko, a click event will still bubble up past a <label>, while in WebKit or Internet Explorer the click event will stop at the <label>. The behavior prior to Gecko 8.0 (triggering multiple <label>s) caused Firefox to stop responding (see bug 646157).

[2] The HTML specification was updated in April 2016 to deprecate the form attribute. It's still available from script, but its definition has changed: it now returns the associated control's form, or null if there is no associated control (that is, if HTMLLabelElement.control is null). See HTMLLabelElement.form.

This change is implemented in Firefox 49.

See also

• Other form-related elements: <form>, <button>, <datalist>, <legend>, <select>, <optgroup>, <option>, <textarea>, <keygen>, <fieldset>, <output>, <progress> and <meter>.