stroke-opacity

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since March 2020.

The stroke-opacity CSS property defines the opacity of an SVG shape's stroke. The effect is identical to that of opacity, except it is applied only to the stroke, not to the entire element. If present, it overrides the element's stroke-opacity attribute.

This property applies to SVG shapes and text-content elements (see stroke-opacity for a full list), but as an inherited property, it may be applied to elements such as <g> and still have the intended effect on descendant elements' strokes.

Note that a shape's stroke partially covers the fill of that shape, so a stroke with an opacity less than 1 will show the fill blended with the stroke where they overlap. To avoid this effect, it is possible to apply a global opacity with the opacity property or to put the stroke behind the fill with the paint-order attribute.

Syntax

css
/* numeric and percentage values */
stroke-opacity: 1;
stroke-opacity: 0.3;
stroke-opacity: 50%;

/* Global values */
stroke-opacity: inherit;
stroke-opacity: initial;
stroke-opacity: revert;
stroke-opacity: revert-layer;
stroke-opacity: unset;

Values

<number>

Any real number from 0 to 1, inclusive. A value of 0 makes the stroke completely transparent, and a value of 1 makes it completely opaque. Values outside the range 0 – 1 are clipped to the nearest end of that range; thus, negative values are clipped to 0.

<percentage>

The same as <number> (see above), except the allowed range is 0% to 100% and clipping is done with regard to that range.

Formal definition

Initial value1
Applies to<circle>, <ellipse>, <line>, <path>, <polygon>, <polyline>, and <rect> elements in an svg
Inheritedyes
Computed valuethe specified value, clipped in the range [0,1]
Animation typeby computed value type

Formal syntax

stroke-opacity = 
  <'opacity'>  

<opacity> = 
  <opacity-value>  

<opacity-value> = 
  <number>      |
  <percentage>

Examples

Various stroke opacities

This example demonstrates basic usage of the stroke-opacity property and how, as a shape's stroke partially covers its fill, a stroke with an opacity less than 1 blends with the fill where they overlap.

HTML

First, we set up five multi-segment paths, all of which use a black stroke with a width of one, and a dodgerblue fill for the subpaths. Each path creates a series of mountain symbols, going from left (a shallow corner angle) to right (an extreme corner angle).

html
<svg viewBox="0 0 39 36" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg">
  <g stroke="black" stroke-width="1" fill="dodgerblue">
    <path
      d="M1,5 l7   ,-3 l7   ,3
         m2,0 l3.5 ,-3 l3.5 ,3
         m2,0 l2   ,-3 l2   ,3
         m2,0 l0.75,-3 l0.75,3
         m2,0 l0.5 ,-3 l0.5 ,3" />
    <path
      d="M1,12 l7,-3 l7,3 m2,0 l3.5,-3 l3.5,3 m2,0 l2,-3 l2,3 m2,0 l0.75,-3 l0.75,3 m2,0 l0.5,-3 l0.5,3" />
    <path
      d="M1,19 l7,-3 l7,3 m2,0 l3.5,-3 l3.5,3 m2,0 l2,-3 l2,3 m2,0 l0.75,-3 l0.75,3 m2,0 l0.5,-3 l0.5,3" />
    <path
      d="M1,26 l7,-3 l7,3 m2,0 l3.5,-3 l3.5,3 m2,0 l2,-3 l2,3 m2,0 l0.75,-3 l0.75,3 m2,0 l0.5,-3 l0.5,3" />
    <path
      d="M1,33 l7,-3 l7,3 m2,0 l3.5,-3 l3.5,3 m2,0 l2,-3 l2,3 m2,0 l0.75,-3 l0.75,3 m2,0 l0.5,-3 l0.5,3" />
  </g>
</svg>

CSS

To these paths, we apply a successively higher stroke opacity value. For the first four paths, the fill can be seen through the inner half of the stroke path, though it may be difficult to discern for the fourth path. For the fifth and last path, the stroke is fully opaque and so the fill cannot be seen through the stroke.

css
g path:nth-child(1) {
  stroke-opacity: 0.2;
} /* equiv. 20% */
g path:nth-child(2) {
  stroke-opacity: 0.4;
} /* equiv. 40% */
g path:nth-child(3) {
  stroke-opacity: 0.6;
} /* equiv. 60% */
g path:nth-child(4) {
  stroke-opacity: 0.8;
} /* equiv. 80% */
g path:nth-child(5) {
  stroke-opacity: 1;
} /* equiv. 100% */

Results

Specifications

Specification
CSS Fill and Stroke Module Level 3
# stroke-opacity

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser

See also