The Truth About !important in CSS: When to Use It (and When to Run Away)

Published on: Nov 24, 2025 by Dr. Talib

We've all done it. You change a color in CSS, refresh the page, and... nothing happens. You try again. Nothing. Frustrated, you add !important to the end of the line. It works! You commit the code and go to lunch.

Congratulations, you just planted a time bomb in your codebase.

The Specificity Wars

To understand why !important is dangerous, you need to understand Specificity. It's the score browsers use to decide which rule wins.

• Tags (h1, p): 1 point
• Classes (.btn): 10 points
• IDs (#header): 100 points
• Inline Styles: 1000 points

If you have a conflict, the higher score wins. But !important is the nuclear option. It overrides everything, even inline styles.

Why It's a Trap

When you use !important, you break the natural cascading order of CSS. The only way to override an !important rule is with another !important rule.

This leads to "Specificity Wars," where your stylesheet becomes a mess of !important tags fighting each other. It makes your code impossible to maintain.

The Only Valid Use Case

Is there ever a good time to use it? Yes: Utility Classes.

If you have a class called .hidden, you want it to hide the element no matter what. Even if that element has an ID or inline styles.

.hidden {
  display: none !important;
}

This is acceptable because the intent is absolute. For everything else, use better selectors.

How to Fix It Properly

Instead of reaching for the nuclear button, increase your specificity.

Bad:

/* Won't work if #sidebar .link is defined elsewhere */
.link {
  color: red !important;
}

Good:

/* More specific, no hacks needed */
#sidebar .link {
  color: red;
}