Example

HTML table with <thead>, <tfoot>, and <tbody> elements:

<table border="1">
  <thead>
    <tr>
      <th>Month</th>
      <th>Savings</th>
    </tr>
  </thead>
  <tfoot>
    <tr>
      <td>Sum</td>
      <td>$180</td>
    </tr>
  </tfoot>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>January</td>
      <td>$100</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>February</td>
      <td>$80</td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

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Browser Support

All major browsers support the <thead> tag.

Tag Definition and Usage Instructions

The <thead> tag is used to group header content in an HTML table.

The <thead> element should be used together with <tbody> and <tfoot> elements to specify different parts of the table (header, body, footer).

By using these elements, browsers can support independent scrolling of the table body apart from the table header and footer. When a long table spanning multiple pages is printed, the table header and footer can be printed on every page containing the table data.

The <thead> tag must be used in the following scenarios: as a child element of the <table> element, appearing after <caption> and <colgroup> elements, and before <tbody>, <tfoot>, and <tr> elements.

Tips and Notes

Note: The <thead> element must contain one or more <tr> tags internally.

Tip: The <thead>, <tbody>, and <tfoot> elements do not affect the table layout by default. However, you can use CSS to style these elements to change the appearance of the table.

Differences between HTML 4.01 and HTML5

In HTML 5, any attributes for the <thead> tag supported in HTML 4.01 are no longer supported.

Attributes

Global Attributes

The <thead> tag supports global HTML attributes.

Event Attributes

The <thead> tag supports event attributes of HTML.