What is the MIME type of .html files?
The MIME type (media type) for HTML document files with the .html extension is text/html. The type of every web page. Always send a charset (text/html; charset=utf-8) or declare <meta charset="utf-8"> in the first 1024 bytes, otherwise browsers may guess the encoding.
Content-Type header
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8Text-based types should include a charset so the browser decodes characters correctly.
Server configuration
| Server | Configuration |
|---|---|
Nginx (mime.types or types {}) | text/html html; |
Apache (.htaccess) | AddType text/html .html |
IIS (web.config) | <mimeMap fileExtension=".html" mimeType="text/html" /> |
| Node.js / Express | res.type('html') or res.setHeader('Content-Type', 'text/html; charset=utf-8') |
| Amazon S3 | Set Content-Type: text/html on the object (metadata), or pass --content-type text/html to aws s3 cp |
Should .html files be compressed?
Yes. HTML document is text, so enabling gzip or Brotli for text/html typically saves 50–80 % of the transfer size. Make sure your server’s compression list includes this type — check with the website compression test.
Why the MIME type matters
Browsers decide what to do with a response — render, run, play or download — from the Content-Type header, not the file extension. With X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff, a wrong type causes stylesheets and scripts to be blocked outright. For uploads, never trust the type sent by the client; check the file’s content (its magic bytes) on the server.
Frequently asked questions
What is the MIME type for .html?
text/html.How do I set the Content-Type for .html in Nginx?
text/html html; is listed in the types block (usually in /etc/nginx/mime.types) and reload Nginx.