# How to check if checkbox is checked in JavaScript

By Atta Ur Rehman Shah (https://attacomsian.com/about). Published Jul 31, 2022, updated Aug 2, 2022. Topics: JavaScript.
Canonical URL: https://attacomsian.com/blog/javascript-check-if-checkbox-checked

> A short guide to learning how to check if a checkbox is checked in using JavaScript and jQuery.

To check if a checkbox is checked in JavaScript, you can use the `checked` property of the HTML element. This property sets or returns the checked state of a checkbox.

Let us say that you have the following checkbox input field:

```markup
<input type="checkbox" id="checkbox">
```

You can use the following code to check if the checkbox is checked or not:

```javascript
const elem = document.querySelector('#checkbox')
if (elem.checked) {
  console.log(`Checkbox is checked!`)
} else {
  console.log(`Checkbox is not checked.`)
}
```

We used the `querySelector()` method to [retrieve the checkbox element from DOM](https://attacomsian.com/blog/getting-dom-elements-javascript#query-selector) using its ID attribute value. Next, we inspected the value of the `checked` property to decide whether the checkbox was checked or not.

The `checked` property can also be used to change the checked status of a checkbox programmatically using JavaScript, as shown below:

```javascript
// Mark checkbox as checked
document.querySelector('#checkbox').checked = true

// Uncheck checkbox
document.querySelector('#checkbox').checked = false
```

If you are using jQuery, the `is()` function can also be used to check if a checkbox is checked or not:

```javascript
if ($('#checkbox').is(':checked')) {
  console.log(`Checkbox is checked!`)
} else {
  console.log(`Checkbox is not checked.`)
}
```