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  5. Origin

Origin header

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since ⁨July 2020⁩.

The HTTP Origin request header indicates the origin (scheme, hostname, and port) that caused the request. For example, if a user agent needs to request resources included in a page, or fetched by scripts that it executes, then the origin of the page may be included in the request.

Header type Request header
Forbidden request header Yes

Syntax

http
Origin: null
Origin: <scheme>://<hostname>
Origin: <scheme>://<hostname>:<port>

Directives

null

The origin is "privacy sensitive", or is an opaque origin (specific cases are listed in the description section).

<scheme>

The protocol that is used. Usually, it is the HTTP protocol or its secured version, HTTPS.

<hostname>

The domain name or the IP address of the origin server.

<port> Optional

Port number on which the server is listening. If no port is given, the default port for the requested service is implied from the scheme (e.g., 80 for an HTTP URL).

Description

The Origin header is similar to the Referer header, but does not disclose the path, and may be null. It is used to provide the security context for the origin request, except in cases where the origin information would be sensitive or unnecessary.

Broadly speaking, user agents add the Origin request header to:

There are some exceptions to the above rules; for example, if a cross-origin GET or HEAD request is made in no-cors mode, the Origin header will not be added.

The Origin header value may be null in a number of cases, including (non-exhaustively):

  • Origins whose scheme is not one of http, https, ftp, ws, wss, or gopher (including blob, file and data).
  • Cross-origin images and media data, including that in <img>, <video> and <audio> elements.
  • Documents created programmatically using createDocument(), generated from a data: URL, or that do not have a creator browsing context.
  • Redirects across origins.
  • Documents served with the Content-Security-Policy sandbox directive whose value doesn't include allow-same-origin.
  • iframes with a sandbox attribute whose value doesn't include allow-same-origin.
  • Responses that are network errors.
  • Referrer-Policy set to no-referrer for non-cors request modes (e.g., basic form posts).

Note: There is a more detailed listing of cases that may return null on Stack Overflow: When do browsers send the Origin header? When do browsers set the origin to null?

Examples

http
Origin: https://developer.mozilla.org
http
Origin: https://developer.mozilla.org:80

Specifications

Specification
The Web Origin Concept
# section-7
Fetch
# origin-header

Browser compatibility

See also

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