HTML Guides for formnovalidate

HTML forms have built-in constraint validation that is enabled by default. When a user submits a form, the browser automatically checks inputs against their constraints (such as required, type="email", pattern, min, max, etc.) and prevents submission if any validation fails. There is no need to add a validate attribute to opt into this behavior because it is the default.

The HTML specification defines novalidate as a valid boolean attribute on the <form> element to disable this default validation, but it does not define a corresponding validate attribute. Using validate will trigger a W3C validation error because the browser doesn’t recognize it and will simply ignore it.

This matters for several reasons:

• Standards compliance: Invalid attributes make your HTML non-conforming, which can cause issues with automated testing and quality tools.
• Developer confusion: A validate attribute suggests it’s doing something functional, but it has no effect. Future maintainers may incorrectly believe it’s enabling validation and be reluctant to remove it.
• Accessibility and tooling: Screen readers and other assistive technologies rely on well-formed HTML. Unrecognized attributes can lead to unpredictable behavior in some user agents.

To fix this issue, determine your intent:

1. If you want form validation enabled — simply remove the validate attribute. Validation is on by default.
2. If you want form validation disabled — replace validate with novalidate.

Examples

Incorrect: using the invalid validate attribute

<form validate action="/submit">
  <label for="email">Email:</label>
  <input type="email" id="email" name="email" required>
  <button type="submit">Submit</button>
</form>

This triggers the error: Attribute “validate” not allowed on element “form” at this point.

Correct: relying on default validation (attribute removed)

Since constraint validation is enabled by default, simply remove the invalid attribute:

<form action="/submit">
  <label for="email">Email:</label>
  <input type="email" id="email" name="email" required>
  <button type="submit">Submit</button>
</form>

The browser will automatically validate the email input — checking both the required constraint and that the value matches a valid email format — before allowing submission.

Correct: using novalidate to disable validation

If your intention is to disable built-in validation (for example, because you handle validation with JavaScript), use the novalidate attribute instead:

<form novalidate action="/submit">
  <label for="city">City:</label>
  <input type="text" id="city" name="city" required>
  <button type="submit">Submit</button>
</form>

In this example, even though the input has the required attribute, the browser will not prevent form submission when the field is empty, because novalidate tells the browser to skip constraint validation on submission.

Using formnovalidate on a specific button

If you want validation enabled for normal submission but want to bypass it for a specific button (such as a “Save Draft” button), use the formnovalidate attribute on that button instead of disabling validation for the entire form:

<form action="/submit">
  <label for="name">Name:</label>
  <input type="text" id="name" name="name" required>
  <button type="submit">Submit</button>
  <button type="submit" formnovalidate formaction="/save-draft">Save Draft</button>
</form>

The “Submit” button will enforce validation, while the “Save Draft” button will skip it. This approach gives you fine-grained control without needing an invalid attribute.