Space Between

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Basic usage

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Add horizontal space between children

Control the horizontal space between elements using the space-x-{amount} utilities.

<div class="flex space-x-4 ...">
  <div>01</div>
  <div>02</div>
  <div>03</div>
</div>

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Add vertical space between children

Control the vertical space between elements using the space-y-{amount} utilities.

<div class="flex flex-col space-y-4 ...">
  <div>01</div>
  <div>02</div>
  <div>03</div>
</div>

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Reversing children order

If your elements are in reverse order (using say flex-row-reverse or flex-col-reverse), use the space-x-reverse or space-y-reverse utilities to ensure the space is added to the correct side of each element.

<div class="flex flex-row-reverse space-x-4 space-x-reverse ...">
  <div>01</div>
  <div>02</div>
  <div>03</div>
</div>

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Using negative values

To use a negative space value, prefix the class name with a dash to convert it to a negative value.

<div class="flex -space-x-4 ...">
  <!-- ... -->
</div>

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Limitations

These utilities are really just a shortcut for adding margin to all-but-the-first-item in a group, and aren’t designed to handle complex cases like grids, layouts that wrap, or situations where the children are rendered in a complex custom order rather than their natural DOM order.

For those situations, it’s better to use the gap utilities when possible, or add margin to every element with a matching negative margin on the parent:

<div class="flow-root">
  <div class="-m-2 flex flex-wrap">
    <div class="m-2 ..."></div>
    <div class="m-2 ..."></div>
    <div class="m-2 ..."></div>
  </div>
</div>

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Cannot be paired with divide utilities

The space-* utilities are not designed to work together with the divide utilities. For those situations, consider adding margin/padding utilities to the children instead.

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Applying conditionally

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Hover, focus, and other states

Tailwind lets you conditionally apply utility classes in different states using variant modifiers. For example, use hover:space-x-8 to only apply the space-x-8 utility on hover.

<div class="flex space-x-2 hover:space-x-8">
  <!-- ... -->
</div>

For a complete list of all available state modifiers, check out the Hover, Focus, & Other States documentation.

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Breakpoints and media queries

You can also use variant modifiers to target media queries like responsive breakpoints, dark mode, prefers-reduced-motion, and more. For example, use md:space-x-8 to apply the space-x-8 utility at only medium screen sizes and above.

<div class="flex space-x-2 md:space-x-8">
  <!-- ... -->
</div>

To learn more, check out the documentation on Responsive Design, Dark Mode and other media query modifiers.

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Using custom values

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Customizing your theme

By default, Tailwind’s space scale uses the default spacing scale. You can customize your spacing scale by editing theme.spacing or theme.extend.spacing in your tailwind.config.js file.

module.exports = {
  theme: {
    extend: {
      spacing: {
        '5px': '5px',
      }
    }
  }
}

Alternatively, you can customize just the space scale by editing theme.space or theme.extend.space in your tailwind.config.js file.

module.exports = {
  theme: {
    extend: {
      space: {
        '5px': '5px',
      }
    }
  }
}

Learn more about customizing the default theme in the theme customization documentation.

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Arbitrary values

If you need to use a one-off space-{x|y} value that doesn’t make sense to include in your theme, use square brackets to generate a property on the fly using any arbitrary value.

<div class="space-y-[5px]">
  <!-- ... -->
</div>

Learn more about arbitrary value support in the arbitrary values documentation.