Remove explicit border color UA stylesheet rule for tables

at a glance

what changed

Chrome's UA stylesheet previously included:

/* OLD — Chrome UA stylesheet, pre-149 */
table {
  border-color: gray;
}

This rule is not in the HTML specification. Neither Firefox nor Safari have it. It caused table borders to be gray in Chrome even when authors expected them to inherit currentColor. Chrome 149 removes the rule, so tables now match the specified and cross-browser behaviour.

impact on your CSS

If you have a <table> with border-collapse: collapse or explicit borders but have not set border-color explicitly, the border colour will change from gray to currentColor (matching your text colour or whatever color is inherited). In most cases this is the desired behaviour and matches what Firefox and Safari already render.

Sites that may be affected

• Tables whose borders were visually gray only because of Chrome's UA rule, and no author CSS set border-color.
• Sites that relied on the gray default for data tables without explicit styling.

Fix if needed

If your design requires gray borders, add an explicit rule:

table {
  border-color: gray; /* now required if you want gray borders */
}

Best practice

Always set border-color explicitly when styling table borders — that way your tables look consistent across Chrome, Firefox, and Safari regardless of UA stylesheet differences.

browser support

see also

• chromestatus — Remove explicit border color UA stylesheet rule for tables (5077341928816640)
• MDN: border-color
• chrome-platform-showcase — live demo