The <form> tag

The <form> tag groups input elements (input, select, textarea, etc.) into a single form for submitting data.

Syntax

<form action="/submit" method="post">...</form>

Attributes

action	The URL the form data is submitted to.
method	"get" (data in the URL) or "post" (data in the request body).
enctype	The data encoding format; file uploads require multipart/form-data.
novalidate	Disables the browser's built-in HTML5 field validation before submission.

Example

<form action="/subscribe" method="post">
  <label for="email">Email</label>
  <input type="email" id="email" name="email" required>
  <button type="submit">Subscribe</button>
</form>

Notes

A button inside a form without an explicit type="button" defaults to type="submit" and submits the form.
File inputs (input type="file") require the form to have enctype="multipart/form-data".

Accessibility

Every input should have an associated label (via for/id, or by wrapping it).

Related tools

The <label> tag

The for attribute of <label>, linking a caption to an input.

The <select> tag

The multiple, size, and required attributes of <select> with option children.

The <textarea> tag

The rows, cols, and maxlength attributes of <textarea> for multi-line text.

The <input> tag

Types and attributes of the <input> tag: type, name, value, required, pattern.

The <button> tag

The type attribute of the <button> tag: submit, button, reset — the difference, with examples.