A plugin that provides a basic reset for form styles that makes form elements easy to override with utilities.

Install the plugin from npm:

npm install -D @tailwindcss/forms

Then add the plugin to your tailwind.config.js file:

// tailwind.config.js
module.exports = {
  theme: {
    // ...
  },
  plugins: [
    require('@tailwindcss/forms'),
    // ...
  ],
}

View the live demo

All of the basic form elements you use will now have some simple default styles that are easy to override with utilities.

Currently we add basic utility-friendly form styles for the following form element types:

• input[type='text']
• input[type='password']
• input[type='email']
• input[type='number']
• input[type='url']
• input[type='date']
• input[type='datetime-local']
• input[type='month']
• input[type='week']
• input[type='time']
• input[type='search']
• input[type='tel']
• input[type='checkbox']
• input[type='radio']
• select
• select[multiple]
• textarea

Note that for text inputs, you must add the type="text" attribute for these styles to take effect. This is a necessary trade-off to avoid relying on the overly greedy input selector and unintentionally styling elements we don't have solutions for yet, like input[type="range"] for example.

Every element has been normalized/reset to a simple visually consistent style that is easy to customize with utilities, even elements like <select> or <input type="checkbox"> that normally need to be reset with appearance: none and customized using custom CSS:

<!-- You can actually customize padding on a select element now: -->
<select class="px-4 py-3 rounded-full">
  <!-- ... -->
</select>

<!-- Or change a checkbox color using text color utilities: -->
<input type="checkbox" class="rounded text-pink-500" />

More customization examples and best practices coming soon.

In addition to the base styles to automatically style each form element we also generate classes that you can use explicitly. This allows you to style form elements by default and have the ability to style non-form things to more closely match those form elements.

<input type="email" class="form-input px-4 py-3 rounded-full">

<select class="form-select px-4 py-3 rounded-full">
  <!-- ... -->
</select>

<input type="checkbox" class="form-checkbox rounded text-pink-500" />

Here is a complete table of the provided form-* classes for reference:

Although we recommend thinking of this plugin as a "form reset" rather than a collection of form component styles, in some cases our default approach may be too heavy-handed, especially when integrating this plugin into existing projects.

For situations where the default strategy of generating both the base styles and classes doesn't work well with your project, you can use strategy option to control whether or not form styling is opt-in or applied globally:

// tailwind.config.js
plugins: [
  require("@tailwindcss/forms")({
    strategy: 'base', // or strategy: 'class',
  }),
],

When using the base strategy, form elements are styled globally by default.

When using the class strategy, form elements do not receive any reset styles by default, and reset styles are added per element using a new set of form-* classes generated by the plugin: