Default color palette

Tailwind includes an expertly-crafted default color palette out-of-the-box that is a great starting point if you don’t have your own specific branding in mind.

Slate
50
#F8FAFC
100
#F1F5F9
200
#E2E8F0
300
#CBD5E1
400
#94A3B8
500
#64748B
600
#475569
700
#334155
800
#1E293B
900
#0F172A
Gray
50
#F9FAFB
100
#F3F4F6
200
#E5E7EB
300
#D1D5DB
400
#9CA3AF
500
#6B7280
600
#4B5563
700
#374151
800
#1F2937
900
#111827
Zinc
50
#FAFAFA
100
#F4F4F5
200
#E4E4E7
300
#D4D4D8
400
#A1A1AA
500
#71717A
600
#52525B
700
#3F3F46
800
#27272A
900
#18181B
Neutral
50
#FAFAFA
100
#F5F5F5
200
#E5E5E5
300
#D4D4D4
400
#A3A3A3
500
#737373
600
#525252
700
#404040
800
#262626
900
#171717
Stone
50
#FAFAF9
100
#F5F5F4
200
#E7E5E4
300
#D6D3D1
400
#A8A29E
500
#78716C
600
#57534E
700
#44403C
800
#292524
900
#1C1917
Red
50
#FEF2F2
100
#FEE2E2
200
#FECACA
300
#FCA5A5
400
#F87171
500
#EF4444
600
#DC2626
700
#B91C1C
800
#991B1B
900
#7F1D1D
Orange
50
#FFF7ED
100
#FFEDD5
200
#FED7AA
300
#FDBA74
400
#FB923C
500
#F97316
600
#EA580C
700
#C2410C
800
#9A3412
900
#7C2D12
Amber
50
#FFFBEB
100
#FEF3C7
200
#FDE68A
300
#FCD34D
400
#FBBF24
500
#F59E0B
600
#D97706
700
#B45309
800
#92400E
900
#78350F
Yellow
50
#FEFCE8
100
#FEF9C3
200
#FEF08A
300
#FDE047
400
#FACC15
500
#EAB308
600
#CA8A04
700
#A16207
800
#854D0E
900
#713F12
Lime
50
#F7FEE7
100
#ECFCCB
200
#D9F99D
300
#BEF264
400
#A3E635
500
#84CC16
600
#65A30D
700
#4D7C0F
800
#3F6212
900
#365314
Green
50
#F0FDF4
100
#DCFCE7
200
#BBF7D0
300
#86EFAC
400
#4ADE80
500
#22C55E
600
#16A34A
700
#15803D
800
#166534
900
#14532D
Emerald
50
#ECFDF5
100
#D1FAE5
200
#A7F3D0
300
#6EE7B7
400
#34D399
500
#10B981
600
#059669
700
#047857
800
#065F46
900
#064E3B
Teal
50
#F0FDFA
100
#CCFBF1
200
#99F6E4
300
#5EEAD4
400
#2DD4BF
500
#14B8A6
600
#0D9488
700
#0F766E
800
#115E59
900
#134E4A
Cyan
50
#ECFEFF
100
#CFFAFE
200
#A5F3FC
300
#67E8F9
400
#22D3EE
500
#06B6D4
600
#0891B2
700
#0E7490
800
#155E75
900
#164E63
Sky
50
#F0F9FF
100
#E0F2FE
200
#BAE6FD
300
#7DD3FC
400
#38BDF8
500
#0EA5E9
600
#0284C7
700
#0369A1
800
#075985
900
#0C4A6E
Blue
50
#EFF6FF
100
#DBEAFE
200
#BFDBFE
300
#93C5FD
400
#60A5FA
500
#3B82F6
600
#2563EB
700
#1D4ED8
800
#1E40AF
900
#1E3A8A
Indigo
50
#EEF2FF
100
#E0E7FF
200
#C7D2FE
300
#A5B4FC
400
#818CF8
500
#6366F1
600
#4F46E5
700
#4338CA
800
#3730A3
900
#312E81
Violet
50
#F5F3FF
100
#EDE9FE
200
#DDD6FE
300
#C4B5FD
400
#A78BFA
500
#8B5CF6
600
#7C3AED
700
#6D28D9
800
#5B21B6
900
#4C1D95
Purple
50
#FAF5FF
100
#F3E8FF
200
#E9D5FF
300
#D8B4FE
400
#C084FC
500
#A855F7
600
#9333EA
700
#7E22CE
800
#6B21A8
900
#581C87
Fuchsia
50
#FDF4FF
100
#FAE8FF
200
#F5D0FE
300
#F0ABFC
400
#E879F9
500
#D946EF
600
#C026D3
700
#A21CAF
800
#86198F
900
#701A75
Pink
50
#FDF2F8
100
#FCE7F3
200
#FBCFE8
300
#F9A8D4
400
#F472B6
500
#EC4899
600
#DB2777
700
#BE185D
800
#9D174D
900
#831843
Rose
50
#FFF1F2
100
#FFE4E6
200
#FECDD3
300
#FDA4AF
400
#FB7185
500
#F43F5E
600
#E11D48
700
#BE123C
800
#9F1239
900
#881337

But when you do need to customize your palette, you can configure your colors under the colors key in the theme section of your tailwind.config.js file:

tailwind.config.js
module.exports = {
  theme: {
    colors: {
      // Configure your color palette here
    }
  }
}

When it comes to building a custom color palette, you can either configure your own custom colors from scratch if you know exactly what you want, or curate your colors from our extensive included color palette if you want a head start.


Using custom colors

If you’d like to completely replace the default color palette with your own custom colors, add your colors directly under the theme.colors section of your configuration file:

tailwind.config.js
module.exports = {
  theme: {
    colors: {
      transparent: 'transparent',
      current: 'currentColor',
      'white': '#ffffff',
      'purple': '#3f3cbb',
      'midnight': '#121063',
      'metal': '#565584',
      'tahiti': '#3ab7bf',
      'silver': '#ecebff',
      'bubble-gum': '#ff77e9',
      'bermuda': '#78dcca',
    },
  },
}

By default, these colors will be made available everywhere in the framework where you use colors, like the text color utilities, border color utilities, background color utilities, and more.

<div class="bg-midnight text-tahiti">
  <!-- ... -->
</div>

Don’t forget to include values like transparent and currentColor if you want to use them in your project.

Color object syntax

When your palette includes multiple shades of the same color, it can be convenient to group them together using our nested color object syntax:

tailwind.config.js
module.exports = {
  theme: {
    colors: {
      transparent: 'transparent',
      current: 'currentColor',
      'white': '#ffffff',
      'tahiti': {
        100: '#cffafe',
        200: '#a5f3fc',
        300: '#67e8f9',
        400: '#22d3ee',
        500: '#06b6d4',
        600: '#0891b2',
        700: '#0e7490',
        800: '#155e75',
        900: '#164e63',
      },
      // ...
    },
  },
}

The nested keys will be combined with the parent key to form class names like bg-tahiti-400.

Like many other places in Tailwind, the special DEFAULT key can be used when you want to define a value with no suffix:

tailwind.config.js
module.exports = {
  theme: {
    colors: {
      // ...
      'tahiti': {
        light: '#67e8f9',
        DEFAULT: '#06b6d4',
        dark: '#0e7490',
      },
      // ...
    },
  },
}

This will create classes like bg-tahiti, bg-tahiti-light, and bg-tahiti-dark.

Arbitrary values

If you need a one-off custom color in your project, consider using Tailwind’s arbitrary value notation to generate a class for that color on-demand instead of adding it to your theme:

<button class="bg-[#1da1f2] text-white ...">
  <svg><!-- ... --></svg>
  Share on Twitter
</button>

Learn more in the using arbitrary values documentation.

Generating colors

If you’re wondering how to automatically generate the 50–900 shades of your own custom colors, bad news — color is complicated and despite trying dozens of different tools, we’ve yet to find one that does a good job generating color palettes like this automatically.

We picked all of Tailwind’s default colors by hand, meticulously balancing them by eye and testing them in real designs to make sure we were happy with them.

Two useful tools we can recommend are Palettte and ColorBox — they won’t do the work for you but their interfaces are well-designed for doing this sort of work.


Using the default colors

If you don’t have a set of completely custom colors in mind for your project, you can curate your colors from our default palette by importing tailwindcss/colors in your configuration file and choosing the colors you want to use:

tailwind.config.js
const colors = require('tailwindcss/colors')

module.exports = {
  theme: {
    colors: {
      transparent: 'transparent',
      current: 'currentColor',
      black: colors.black,
      white: colors.white,
      gray: colors.gray,
      emerald: colors.emerald,
      indigo: colors.indigo,
      yellow: colors.yellow,
    },
  },
}

This can be helpful if you want to deliberately limit your color palette and reduce the number of class names suggested by IntelliSense.

Aliasing color names

You can also alias the colors in our default palette to make the names simpler and easier to remember:

tailwind.config.js
const colors = require('tailwindcss/colors')

module.exports = {
  theme: {
    colors: {
      transparent: 'transparent',
      current: 'currentColor',
      black: colors.black,
      white: colors.white,
      gray: colors.slate,
      green: colors.emerald,
      purple: colors.violet,
      yellow: colors.amber,
      pink: colors.fuchsia,
    },
  },
}

This is especially common for grays, as you usually only use one set in any given project and it’s nice to be able to type bg-gray-300 instead of bg-neutral-300 for example.

Adding additional colors

If you’d like to add a brand new color to the default palette, add it in the theme.extend.colors section of your configuration file:

tailwind.config.js
module.exports = {
  theme: {
    extend: {
      colors: {
        brown: {
          50: '#fdf8f6',
          100: '#f2e8e5',
          200: '#eaddd7',
          300: '#e0cec7',
          400: '#d2bab0',
          500: '#bfa094',
          600: '#a18072',
          700: '#977669',
          800: '#846358',
          900: '#43302b',
        },
      }
    },
  },
}

You can also use theme.extend.colors to add additional shades to an existing color if it’s needed for your design:

tailwind.config.js
module.exports = {
  theme: {
    extend: {
      colors: {
        blue: {
          950: '#17275c',
        },
      }
    },
  },
}

Disabling a default color

If you’d like to disable any of the default colors, the best approach is to override the default color palette and just include the colors you do want:

tailwind.config.js
const colors = require('tailwindcss/colors')

module.exports = {
  theme: {
    colors: {
      transparent: 'transparent',
      current: 'currentColor',
      black: colors.black,
      white: colors.white,
      gray: colors.gray,
      emerald: colors.emerald,
      indigo: colors.indigo,
      yellow: colors.yellow,
    },
  },
}

Naming your colors

Tailwind uses literal color names (like red, green, etc.) and a numeric scale (where 50 is light and 900 is dark) by default. We think this is the best choice for most projects, and have found it easier to maintain than using abstract names like primary or danger.

That said, you can name your colors in Tailwind whatever you like, and if you’re working on a project that needs to support multiple themes for example, it might make sense to use more abstract names:

tailwind.config.js
module.exports = {
  theme: {
    colors: {
      primary: '#5c6ac4',
      secondary: '#ecc94b',
      // ...
    }
  }
}

You can configure those colors explicitly like we have above, or you can pull in colors from our default color palette and alias them:

tailwind.config.js
const colors = require('tailwindcss/colors')

module.exports = {
  theme: {
    colors: {
      primary: colors.indigo,
      secondary: colors.yellow,
      neutral: colors.gray,
    }
  }
}

Again, we recommend sticking to the default naming convention for most projects, and only using abstract names if you have a really good reason.


Using CSS variables

If you’d like to define your colors as CSS variables, you’ll need to define those variables as just the color channels if you want them to work with the opacity modifier syntax:

Define your CSS variables as channels with no color space function

main.css
@tailwind base;
@tailwind components;
@tailwind utilities;

@layer base {
  :root {
    --color-primary: 255 115 179;
    --color-secondary: 111 114 185;
    /* ... */
  }
}

Don't include the color space function or opacity modifiers won't work

main.css
@tailwind base;
@tailwind components;
@tailwind utilities;

@layer base {
  :root {
    --color-primary: rgb(255 115 179);
    --color-secondary: rgb(111 114 185);
    /* ... */
  }
}

Then define your colors in your configuration file, being sure to include the color space you’re using, and the special <alpha-value> placeholder that Tailwind will use to inject the alpha value when using an opacity modifier:

tailwind.config.js
module.exports = {
  theme: {
    colors: {
      // Using modern `rgb`
      primary: 'rgb(var(--color-primary) / <alpha-value>)',
      secondary: 'rgb(var(--color-secondary) / <alpha-value>)',

      // Using modern `hsl`
      primary: 'hsl(var(--color-primary) / <alpha-value>)',
      secondary: 'hsl(var(--color-secondary) / <alpha-value>)',

      // Using legacy `rgba`
      primary: 'rgba(var(--color-primary), <alpha-value>)',
      secondary: 'rgba(var(--color-secondary), <alpha-value>)',
    }
  }
}

When defining your colors this way, make sure that the format of your CSS variables is correct for the color function you are using. You’ll want to use spaces if using the modern space-separated syntax, and commas if using legacy functions like rgba or hsla:

main.css
@tailwind base;
@tailwind components;
@tailwind utilities;

@layer base {
  :root {
    /* For rgb(255 115 179 / <alpha-value>) */
    --color-primary: 255 115 179;

    /* For hsl(198deg 93% 60% / <alpha-value>) */
    --color-primary: 198deg 93% 60%;

    /* For rgba(255, 115, 179, <alpha-value>) */
    --color-primary: 255, 115, 179;
  }
}