HTMLFormElement: submit event

The submit event fires when a <form> is submitted.

Bubbles Yes (although specified as a simple event that doesn't bubble)
Cancelable Yes
Interface SubmitEvent
Event handler property GlobalEventHandlers.onsubmit

Note that the submit event fires on the <form> element itself, and not on any <button> or <input type="submit"> inside it. However, the SubmitEvent which is sent to indicate the form's submit action has been triggered includes a submitter property, which is the button that was invoked to trigger the submit request.

The submit event fires when the user clicks a submit button (<button> or <input type="submit">) or presses Enter while editing a field (e.g. <input type="text">) in a form. The event is not sent to the form when calling the form.submit() method directly.

Note: Trying to submit a form that does not pass validation triggers an invalid event. In this case, the validation prevents form submission, and thus there is no submit event.

Examples

This example uses EventTarget.addEventListener() to listen for form submit, and logs the current Event.timeStamp whenever that occurs, then prevents the default action of submitting the form.

HTML

<form id="form">
  <label>Test field: <input type="text"></label>
  <br><br>
  <button type="submit">Submit form</button>
</form>
<p id="log"></p>

JavaScript

function logSubmit(event) {
  log.textContent = `Form Submitted! Time stamp: ${event.timeStamp}`;
  event.preventDefault();
}

const form = document.getElementById('form');
const log = document.getElementById('log');
form.addEventListener('submit', logSubmit);

Result

Specifications

Specification
HTML Standard
# event-submit

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser

See also