Flex Basis

Quick reference

Basic usage

Setting the flex basis

Use the basis-{size} utilities to set the initial size of flex items.

<div class="flex flex-row">
  <div class="basis-1/4">01</div>
  <div class="basis-1/4">02</div>
  <div class="basis-1/2">03</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:basis-1/2 to only apply the basis-1/2 utility on hover.

<div class="basis-1/3 hover:basis-1/2">
  <!-- ... -->
</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:basis-1/3 to apply the basis-1/3 utility at only medium screen sizes and above.

<div class="flex flex-row">
  <div class="basis-1/4 md:basis-1/3">01</div>
  <div class="basis-1/4 md:basis-1/3">02</div>
  <div class="basis-1/2 md:basis-1/3">03</div>
</div>

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

Using custom values

Customizing your theme

The default flex basis scale is a combination of the default spacing scale as well as a set of percentage based values.

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: {
        '112': '28rem',
        '128': '32rem',
      }
    }
  }
}

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

module.exports = {
  theme: {
    extend: {
      flexBasis: {
        '1/7': '14.2857143%',
        '2/7': '28.5714286%',
        '3/7': '42.8571429%',
        '4/7': '57.1428571%',
        '5/7': '71.4285714%',
        '6/7': '85.7142857%',
      }
    }
  }
}

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

Arbitrary values

If you need to use a one-off flex-basis 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="basis-[14.2857143%]">
  <!-- ... -->
</div>

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