HTML Guides for grid

An element with role="row" must sit inside an element whose role is table, grid, treegrid, or rowgroup, or be claimed by one through aria-owns. A row on its own has no structure to belong to, so assistive technologies cannot tell which table or grid it is part of.

The row role describes one row of a composite structure. Those four allowed owners fall into two groups: table and rowgroup for static tabular data, and grid and treegrid for interactive widgets that support keyboard navigation. In every case the container supplies the context a screen reader needs to announce the row's position and its cells. Placed outside such a container, the row is orphaned and the whole table semantics break down.

The most reliable fix is to nest the role="row" element inside its container in the DOM. When your layout prevents that, keep the row where it is and point aria-owns from the container at the row's id.

Invalid example

The role="row" is a sibling of the table, so nothing contains or owns it:

<div role="table" aria-label="Prices"></div>

<div role="row">

<span role="cell">Basic</span>

<span role="cell">$9</span>

</div>

Valid example

Nest the row inside the element with role="table":

<div role="table" aria-label="Prices">

<div role="row">

<span role="cell">Basic</span>

<span role="cell">$9</span>

</div>

</div>

If the DOM nesting is not possible, leave the row in place and add aria-owns="price-row" to the container so assistive technologies still treat it as the owner.

A <tr> element already has an implicit ARIA role of row, so adding role="row" is redundant when the parent <table> uses its default semantics or has a role of table, grid, or treegrid.

HTML tables come with built-in accessibility semantics. The <table> element implicitly has role="table", and <tr> implicitly has role="row". Browsers and assistive technologies already understand this structure, so explicitly adding these roles is unnecessary and flagged by the W3C validator.

The only time you'd need to add a role to a <tr> is when the table's native semantics have been overridden — for example, if the <table> has been repurposed with a non-table role like role="presentation" or role="none". In that case, you'd need explicit ARIA roles to restore row semantics.

Incorrect Example

<table>

<tr role="row">

<th>Name</th>

<th>Email</th>

</tr>

<tr role="row">

<td>Alice</td>

<td>alice@example.com</td>

</tr>

</table>

Fixed Example

Simply remove the redundant role="row" from the <tr> elements:

<table>

<tr>

<th>Name</th>

<th>Email</th>

</tr>

<tr>

<td>Alice</td>

<td>alice@example.com</td>

</tr>

</table>

The same fix applies if your <table> explicitly has role="table", role="grid", or role="treegrid" — the <tr> elements still don't need an explicit role="row" because the browser infers it automatically.