How do I make a Webflow text field required?

Turn Required on for the text input

Required means the form cannot be submitted until that field is filled. It is a setting on the input, not a sentence you type into the placeholder.

Open the form on the canvas. Select the text input inside the Form wrapper. You can double-click the input, click the settings icon next to its label, or select it and open the Settings panel. Turn Required on. Do the same for a text area when the long answer is mandatory. The input has to sit inside the form. An input placed beside the form is not part of that submit.

Example: a contact form should not send without an email address. Select the email input, turn Required on, and leave the name and message fields for a second pass. You can require more than one field. Each one is its own setting.

The placeholder guide covers the gray hint inside an empty field. That hint is not Required, and it is not a substitute for this setting.

Name the field and keep a visible label

Set Name to something you will recognize in the submission list, such as Work email. The forms article says Name identifies the field in form submissions. A default name is harder to read when several forms land in the same table.

Keep the field label. Webflow's forms article says labels help people who use screen readers, and that you should not delete them. Placeholder text disappears as someone types, and it is not read the way a label is. If you need the words 'Work email' to stay visible, put them in the label. You can still add a short placeholder, such as 'name@company.com', as extra hint text.

Do not use the label itself as the only instruction and then hide it with a style. The next section is what happens when a required field is hidden.

Leave every required field visible

If a required field is hidden, the form will not submit. Webflow's notification troubleshooting says to check that required fields are visible in the Navigator. This is a common reason a form fails after you add Required and then hide a field you meant to drop.

Open the Navigator and look at each input with Required turned on. If you no longer want a field, delete it. Hiding it with display none, or moving it off the screen, leaves the requirement in place. The visitor cannot fill a field they cannot see, and the form stops.

Example: an old 'Company fax' input is still in the form, Required is on, and someone hid it on mobile. Submits fail on a phone. Delete that input, or turn Required off, then publish again.

The form submit guide is the wider checklist when a test never appears. Required is one item on that list. A missing submit button, a custom form action, or a reCAPTCHA rule with no reCAPTCHA element can also block the send.

Text type is a separate check

Text type decides what the field accepts. Webflow lists email, phone, and password as examples. Phone shows a numeric keypad on mobile. Password hides the characters. Required does not do any of that. A required text field will accept a single letter unless you also set the type.

For the contact form, set the email input's text type to email and turn Required on. Someone can still type a fake address that merely looks like an email. Required plus the email type blocks an empty field and a value that does not match the email shape. It does not prove the mailbox exists.

Choice fields are a different control. A checkbox, a radio button, and a select each have Required in their own settings. For a radio group, only one button in the group needs Required, and that makes the whole group required. If Required is on and the group name is empty, that single button has to be selected. The checkbox guide, the radio guide, and the select guide cover those controls. Do not stack a text input next to a checkbox and expect one Required switch to cover both.

Publish, then try an empty submit

Canvas checks are not enough. Publish the site, open the published page, leave the required field empty, and submit. The form should not complete. Fill the field with a labeled test, such as 'required check', and submit again. Open Site settings, Forms, and find that row. The Name you set is how you spot the field.

If the empty submit still goes through, Required is not on for the input you think it is. Select the field in the Navigator and look again. If the filled submit never appears, stop adding rules and use the submit checklist. On the free Starter Site plan, Webflow keeps a maximum of 50 form submissions in total. After that limit, new submissions are not collected until the Site plan changes. A missing row can be the limit, not a broken Required setting.