At the bottom of a sign-up form, a discreet line reminds the reader that clicking "Create my account" means accepting the terms of service. At the bottom of a site, another line states the company name, its registration number, and the copyright year.
These mentions are not simple layout details shrunk down to take less space: they carry a status of their own, that of the legal small print, and HTML sets aside a specific tag for them rather than a plain reduction in font size.
Definition
<small> wraps the side notices of a page: legal disclaimers, clauses, terms, copyright, or any text that editorial practice traditionally sets in small print at the foot of a printed document. Its default visual rendering, text smaller than the rest, is only a convention inherited from that paper tradition.
What <small> does not stand for is "text I want displayed smaller". Shrinking a heading, a label or a caption for purely visual reasons never belongs to this tag, but to a CSS property, a distinction covered in more detail below.
Syntax and minimal markup
It is an inline element with no attribute of its own beyond the global ones. It usually wraps a short sentence or a fragment of a paragraph, rarely an entire block.
<footer>
<p><small>© 2026 Believemy. All rights reserved.</small></p>
</footer>Concrete example
A sign-up form often pairs an action button with, right below it, the legal notice framing what that button triggers.
<button type="submit">Create my account</button>
<p><small>
By creating an account, you agree to our terms of service
and our privacy policy.
</small></p>That notice could also state when the referenced document was last updated using <time>, for instance "terms last updated on March 3, 2026", which keeps the text readable by a machine as much as by a hurried reader.
Difference with plain CSS font-size
Shrinking a font size and marking legal small print are two different gestures, easily confused because they often produce the same rendering on screen.
<small> | CSS font-size alone | |
|---|---|---|
| What it expresses | A legal or side notice, recognised as such | Nothing, purely a display size |
| To a screen reader | Content identifiable as secondary | No difference from the surrounding text |
| Good use | Copyright, clauses, disclaimers | Shrinking a label, a caption, a heading by graphic choice |
A heading displayed smaller for purely aesthetic reasons remains a heading: it keeps its heading tag and its size is set in CSS. Conversely, a legal notice displayed at the same size as the surrounding text, by design choice, keeps its <small> tag regardless: visual size and meaning are two independent things, even though they often coincide by convention.
<small> implies no lesser importance for a screen reader or a search engine: it is not a tag that makes content secondary or skippable, only one that identifies a side notice. An important legal warning does not become less important because it is marked with <small>.
Best practices
Reserve <small> for notices that traditionally belong to the legal small print: copyright, contractual clauses, disclaimers, summarised terms of use. Never reach for it to visually shrink a heading, a menu or a caption unrelated to that legal register, a CSS property is entirely enough for that purely visual need.
Keep the content short and focused: <small> wraps a sentence or a short paragraph, not an entire page of terms and conditions, which deserves its own linked document at normal readable size.
Frequently asked questions
Does the text inside <small> have to actually display smaller than the rest?
The browser does this by default, but nothing requires keeping that style. The meaning of the tag comes from what it designates, a side notice, not from its display size, which the site's CSS can adjust freely without stripping any meaning from the markup.
Can <small> be used for a plain secondary label, like a subtle subtitle?
No, that is not this tag's role. A subtle subtitle remains a heading element or a paragraph styled smaller in CSS, while <small> is reserved for the register of legal small print, notices, clauses, copyright, a much narrower use.
Does a footnote called out by a raised number belong under <small>?
The reference mark itself, written as a raised digit in the text, belongs instead under <sup>. The block of notes gathered at the bottom of the page, though, often adopts <small> because it is side text to the main body, which fits the spirit of the tag well even though no rule enforces that exact choice.