How can I set the default value for an HTML element?

By John Campbell • February 08, 2026

I thought that adding a "value" attribute set on the <select> element below would cause the <option> containing my provided "value" to be selected by default:

<select name="hall" value="3"> <option>1</option> <option>2</option> <option>3</option> <option>4</option> <option>5</option>
</select>

However, this did not work as I had expected. How can I set which <option> element is selected by default?

1

34 Answers

12 Next

Set selected="selected" for the option you want to be the default.

<option selected="selected">
3
</option>

3

In case you want to have a default text as a sort of placeholder/hint but not considered a valid value (something like "complete here", "select your nation" ecc.) you can do something like this:

<select> <option value="" selected disabled hidden>Choose here</option> <option value="1">One</option> <option value="2">Two</option> <option value="3">Three</option> <option value="4">Four</option> <option value="5">Five</option>
</select>

3

Complete example:

<select name="hall"> <option> 1 </option> <option> 2 </option> <option selected> 3 </option> <option> 4 </option> <option> 5 </option>
</select> 

4

I came across this question, but the accepted and highly upvoted answer didn't work for me. It turns out that if you are using React, then setting selected doesn't work.

Instead you have to set a value in the <select> tag directly as shown below:

<select value="B"> <option value="A">Apple</option> <option value="B">Banana</option> <option value="C">Cranberry</option>
</select>

Read more about why here on the React page.

0

You can do it like this:

<select name="hall"> <option> 1 </option> <option> 2 </option> <option selected> 3 </option> <option> 4 </option> <option> 5 </option>
</select> 

Provide "selected" keyword inside the option tag, which you want to appear by default in your drop down list.

Or you can also provide attribute to the option tag i.e.

<option selected="selected">3</option>

2

if you want to use the values from a Form and keep it dynamic try this with php

<form action="../<SamePage>/" method="post">
<?php $selected = $_POST['select'];
?>
<select name="select" size="1"> <option <?php if($selected == '1'){echo("selected");}?>>1</option> <option <?php if($selected == '2'){echo("selected");}?>>2</option>
</select>
</form>

0

Best way in my opinion:

<select> <option value="" selected="selected" hidden="hidden">Choose here</option> <option value="1">One</option> <option value="2">Two</option> <option value="3">Three</option> <option value="4">Four</option> <option value="5">Five</option>
</select>

Why not disabled?

When you use disabled attribute together with <button type="reset">Reset</button> value is not reset to original placeholder. Instead browser choose first not disabled option which may cause user mistakes.

Default empty value

Every production form has validation, then empty value should not be a problem. This way we may have empty not required select.

XHTML syntax attributes

selected="selected" syntax is the only way to be compatible with both XHTML and HTML 5. It is correct XML syntax and some editors may be happy about this. It is more backward compatible. If XML compliance is important you should follow the full syntax.

0

I prefer this:

<select> <option selected hidden>Choose here</option> <option value="1">One</option> <option value="2">Two</option> <option value="3">Three</option> <option value="4">Four</option> <option value="5">Five</option>
</select>

'Choose here' disappears after an option has been selected.

0

An improvement for nobita's answer. Also you can improve the visual view of the drop down list, by hiding the element 'Choose here'.

<select> <option selected disabled hidden>Choose here</option> <option value="1">One</option> <option value="2">Two</option> <option value="3">Three</option> <option value="4">Four</option> <option value="5">Five</option>
</select>

Another example; using JavaScript to set a selected option.

(You could use this example to for loop an array of values into a drop down component)

<select><select/>

// Get the select element
var select = document.getElementById("yourDropDownElementId");
// Create a new option element
var el = document.createElement("option");
// Add our value to the option
el.textContent = "Example Value";
el.value = "Example Value";
// Set the option to selected
el.selected = true;
// Add the new option element to the select element
select.appendChild(el);

4

The selected attribute is a boolean attribute.

When present, it specifies that an option should be pre-selected when the page loads.

The pre-selected option will be displayed first in the drop-down list.

<select> <option value="volvo">Volvo</option> <option value="saab">Saab</option> <option value="vw">VW</option> <option value="audi" selected>Audi</option>
</select> 

If you are in react you can use defaultValue as attribute instead of value in the select tag.

If you are using select with angular 1, then you need to use ng-init, otherwise, second option will not be selected since, ng-model overrides the defaul selected value

<select ng-model="sortVar" ng-init='sortVar="stargazers_count"'> <option value="name">Name</option> <option selected="selected" value="stargazers_count">Stars</option> <option value="language">Language</option>
</select>

I would just simply make the first select option value the default and just hide that value in the dropdown with HTML5's new "hidden" feature. Like this:

 <select name=""> <option hidden value="default">Select An Option</option> <option value="1">One</option> <option value="2">Two</option> <option value="3">Three</option> <option value="4">Four</option> </select>

value attribute of tag is missing, so it doesn't show as u desired selected. By default first option show on dropdown page load, if value attribute is set on tag.... I got solved my problem this way

I used this php function to generate the options, and insert it into my HTML

<?php # code to output a set of options for a numeric drop down list # parameters: (start, end, step, format, default) function numericoptions($start, $end, $step, $formatstring, $default) { $retstring = ""; for($i = $start; $i <= $end; $i = $i + $step) { $retstring = $retstring . '<OPTION '; $retstring = $retstring . 'value="' . sprintf($formatstring,$i) . '"'; if($default == $i) { $retstring = $retstring . ' selected="selected"'; } $retstring = $retstring . '>' . sprintf($formatstring,$i) . '</OPTION> '; } return $retstring; }
?>

And then in my webpage code I use it as below;

<select name="endmin"> <?php echo numericoptions(0,55,5,'%02d',$endmin); ?>
</select>

If $endmin is created from a _POST variable every time the page is loaded (and this code is inside a form which posts) then the previously selected value is selected by default.

This code sets the default value for the HTML select element with PHP.

<select name="hall">
<?php $default = 3; $nr = 1; while($nr < 10){ if($nr == $default){ echo "<option selected=\"selected\">". $nr ."</option>"; } else{ echo "<option>". $nr ."</option>"; } $nr++; }
?>
</select>

You can use:

<option value="someValue" selected>Some Value</option>

instead of,

<option value="someValue" selected = "selected">Some Value</option>

both are equally correct.

Set selected="selected" where is option value is 3

please see below example

<option selected="selected" value="3" >3</option>

0

I myself use it

<select selected=''> <option value=''></option> <option value='1'>ccc</option> <option value='2'>xxx</option> <option value='3'>zzz</option> <option value='4'>aaa</option> <option value='5'>qqq</option> <option value='6'>wwww</option>
</select>

You just need to put attribute "selected" on a particular option instead direct to select element.

Here is snippet for same and multiple working example with different values.

 Select Option 3 :- <select name="hall"> <option>1</option> <option>2</option> <option selected="selected">3</option> <option>4</option> <option>5</option> </select> <br/> <br/> <br/> Select Option 5 :- <select name="hall"> <option>1</option> <option>2</option> <option>3</option> <option>4</option> <option selected="selected">5</option> </select> <br/> <br/> <br/> Select Option 2 :- <select name="hall"> <option>1</option> <option selected="selected">2</option> <option>3</option> <option>4</option> <option>5</option> </select>

You will need an "id" attribute in each option for this solution to work:

<script>
function select_option (id,value_selected) { var select; select = document.getElementById(id); if (select == null) return 0; var option; option = select.options.namedItem(value_selected); if (option == null) return 0; option.selected = "selected"; return true;
}
</script>
<select name="hall"> <option>1</option> <option>2</option> <option>3</option> <option>4</option> <option>5</option>
</select>
<script>select_option ("hall","3");</script> 

The function first tries to find the <select> with the id, then it will search for the value_selected in the <select> options and if it finds it, it will set the selected attribute returning true. False otherwise

This example has been tested to work with multiple <select> elements on the page, and can also work with normal text elements. It has not been tested for setting the value to more than one selection when <select multiple="true">, however you can probably modify this sample to support that.

• Add an attribute data-selected to each <select> element and set the value(s) to the value of the option you wish to have selected.

• Use javascript's querySelectorAll() to select all elements that have the custom attribute you just added.

In the following example, when run, the first <select> should show option with the value user as selected, and the second <select> should show the option with the value admin as selected.

document.querySelectorAll('[data-selected]').forEach(e => { e.value = e.dataset.selected
});

<select name="role"> <option value="public"> Pubblica </option> <option value="user"> Utenti </option> <option value="admin"> Admin </option>
</select>
<select name="role2"> <option value="public"> Pubblica </option> <option value="user"> Utenti </option> <option value="admin"> Admin </option>
</select>

The problem with <select> is, it's sometimes disconnected with the state of what's currently rendered and unless something has changed in the option list, no change value is returned. This can be a problem when trying to select the first option from a list. The following code can get the first-option the first-time selected, but onchange="changeFontSize(this)" by its self would not. There are methods described above using a dummy option to force a user to make a change value to pickup the actual first value, such as starting the list with an empty value. Note: onclick would call the function twice, the following code does not, but solves the first-time problem.

<label>Font Size</label>
<select name="fontSize" onfocus="changeFontSize(this)" onchange="changeFontSize(this)"> <option value="small">Small</option> <option value="medium">Medium</option> <option value="large">Large</option> <option value="extraLarge">Extra large</option>
</select>
<script>
function changeFontSize(x){ body=document.getElementById('body'); if (x.value=="extraLarge") { body.style.fontSize="25px"; } else { body.style.fontSize=x.value; }
}
</script>

I use Angular and i set the default option by

HTML Template

<select #selectConnection [(ngModel)]="selectedVal" max-width="100px" title="Select"> <option >test1</option> <option >test2</option> </select>

Script:

sselectedVal:any="test1";

To set the default using PHP and JavaScript:

State: <select>
<option value="" selected disabled hidden></option>
<option value="Andhra Pradesh">Andhra Pradesh</option>
<option value="Andaman and Nicobar Islands">Andaman and Nicobar Islands</option>
.
.
<option value="West Bengal">West Bengal</option>
</select>
<?php
if(isset($_GET['State'])){ echo <<<heredoc
<script>
document.getElementById("State").querySelector('option[value="{$_GET['State']}"]').selected = true;
</script>
heredoc;
}
?>

Default selected value is Option-4

 <html:select property="status" value="OPTION_4" styleClass="form-control"> <html:option value="">Select</html:option> <html:option value="OPTION_1" >Option-1</html:option> <html:option value="OPTION_2" >Option-2</html:option> <html:option value="OPTION_3" >Option-3</html:option> <html:option value="OPTION_4" >Option-4</html:option> <html:option value="OPTION_5" >Option-5</html:option> </html:select>

I was having some troubles with it because I need some way to choose the option dynamically accordingly to the value that I have in the database. The script bellow works like a charm to me:

<?php
//pick the value of database
$selected_sexo = $query['s_sexo'];
?>
<select name="s_sexo" required> <option <?php if($selected_sexo == 'M'){echo("selected");}?> value="M">M</option> <option <?php if($selected_sexo == 'F'){echo("selected");}?> value="F">F</option>
</select>

This is how I did it...

<form action="../<SamePage>/" method="post">
<?php if ( $_POST['drop_down'] == "") { $selected = ""; } else { $selected = "selected"; }
?>
<select name="select" size="1"> <option value="1" <?php $selected ?>>One</option> //////// OR //////// <option value="2" $selected>Two</option>
</select>
</form>

1

You can try like this

 <select name="hall"> <option>1</option> <option>2</option> <option selected="selected">3</option> <option>4</option> <option>5</option> </select>

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