Question

Utilities for controlling how elements are sized and placed across grid columns.

Quick reference

Class	Properties
col-auto	grid-column: auto;
col-span-1	grid-column: span 1 / span 1;
col-span-2	grid-column: span 2 / span 2;
col-span-3	grid-column: span 3 / span 3;
col-span-4	grid-column: span 4 / span 4;
col-span-5	grid-column: span 5 / span 5;
col-span-6	grid-column: span 6 / span 6;
col-span-7	grid-column: span 7 / span 7;
col-span-8	grid-column: span 8 / span 8;
col-span-9	grid-column: span 9 / span 9;
col-span-10	grid-column: span 10 / span 10;
col-span-11	grid-column: span 11 / span 11;
col-span-12	grid-column: span 12 / span 12;
col-span-full	grid-column: 1 / -1;
col-start-1	grid-column-start: 1;
col-start-2	grid-column-start: 2;
col-start-3	grid-column-start: 3;
col-start-4	grid-column-start: 4;
col-start-5	grid-column-start: 5;
col-start-6	grid-column-start: 6;
col-start-7	grid-column-start: 7;
col-start-8	grid-column-start: 8;
col-start-9	grid-column-start: 9;
col-start-10	grid-column-start: 10;
col-start-11	grid-column-start: 11;
col-start-12	grid-column-start: 12;
col-start-13	grid-column-start: 13;
col-start-auto	grid-column-start: auto;
col-end-1	grid-column-end: 1;
col-end-2	grid-column-end: 2;
col-end-3	grid-column-end: 3;
col-end-4	grid-column-end: 4;
col-end-5	grid-column-end: 5;
col-end-6	grid-column-end: 6;
col-end-7	grid-column-end: 7;
col-end-8	grid-column-end: 8;
col-end-9	grid-column-end: 9;
col-end-10	grid-column-end: 10;
col-end-11	grid-column-end: 11;
col-end-12	grid-column-end: 12;
col-end-13	grid-column-end: 13;
col-end-auto	grid-column-end: auto;

Basic usage

Spanning columns

Use the col-span-* utilities to make an element span n columns.

01 02 03 04 05 06 07

<div class="grid grid-cols-3 gap-4">
  <div class="...">01</div>
  <div class="...">02</div>
  <div class="...">03</div>
  <div class="col-span-2 ...">04</div>
  <div class="...">05</div>
  <div class="...">06</div>
  <div class="col-span-2 ...">07</div>
</div>

Starting and ending lines

Use the col-start-* and col-end-* utilities to make an element start or end at the nth grid line. These can also be combined with the col-span-* utilities to span a specific number of columns.

Note that CSS grid lines start at 1, not 0, so a full-width element in a 6-column grid would start at line 1 and end at line 7.

01 02 03 04

<div class="grid grid-cols-6 gap-4">
  <div class="col-start-2 col-span-4 ...">01</div>
  <div class="col-start-1 col-end-3 ...">02</div>
  <div class="col-end-7 col-span-2 ...">03</div>
  <div class="col-start-1 col-end-7 ...">04</div>
</div>

---

Applying conditionally

Hover, focus, and other states

Tailwind lets you conditionally apply utility classes in different states using variant modifiers. For example, use hover:col-span-6 to only apply the col-span-6 utility on hover.

<div class="col-span-2 hover:col-span-6">
  <!-- ... -->
</div>

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

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:col-span-6 to apply the col-span-6 utility at only medium screen sizes and above.

<div class="col-span-2 md:col-span-6">
  <!-- ... -->
</div>

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

---

Using custom values

Customizing your theme

By default, Tailwind includes grid-column utilities for working with grids with up to 12 columns. You change, add, or remove these by customizing the gridColumn, gridColumnStart, and gridColumnEnd sections of your Tailwind theme config.

To add new col-* utilities, customize the gridColumn section of your Tailwind theme config:

tailwind.config.js

module.exports = {
  theme: {
    extend: {
      gridColumn: {
        'span-16': 'span 16 / span 16',
      }
    }
  }
}

We use this internally for our col-span-* utilities. Note that since this configures the grid-column shorthand property directly, we include the word span directly in the value name, it’s not baked into the class name automatically. That means you are free to add entries that do whatever you want here — they don’t just have to be span utilities.

To add new col-start-* utilities, customize the gridColumnStart section of your Tailwind theme config:

tailwind.config.js

module.exports = {
  theme: {
    extend: {
      gridColumnStart: {
        '13': '13',
        '14': '14',
        '15': '15',
        '16': '16',
        '17': '17',
      }
    }
  }
}

To add new col-end-* utilities, customize the gridColumnEnd section of your Tailwind theme config:

tailwind.config.js

module.exports = {
  theme: {
    extend: {
      gridColumnEnd: {
        '13': '13',
        '14': '14',
        '15': '15',
        '16': '16',
        '17': '17',
      }
    }
  }
}

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

Arbitrary values

If you need to use a one-off grid column 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="col-[16_/_span_16]">
  <!-- ... -->
</div>

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