The “role” attribute must not be used on a “tr” element which has a “table” ancestor with no “role” attribute, or with a “role” attribute whose value is “table”, “grid”, or “treegrid”.

A <tr> element already has an implicit ARIA role of row, so adding role="row" is redundant when the parent <table> uses its default semantics or has a role of table, grid, or treegrid.

HTML tables come with built-in accessibility semantics. The <table> element implicitly has role="table", and <tr> implicitly has role="row". Browsers and assistive technologies already understand this structure, so explicitly adding these roles is unnecessary and flagged by the W3C validator.

The only time you’d need to add a role to a <tr> is when the table’s native semantics have been overridden — for example, if the <table> has been repurposed with a non-table role like role="presentation" or role="none". In that case, you’d need explicit ARIA roles to restore row semantics.

Incorrect Example

<table>
  <tr role="row">
    <th>Name</th>
    <th>Email</th>
  </tr>
  <tr role="row">
    <td>Alice</td>
    <td>alice@example.com</td>
  </tr>
</table>

Fixed Example

Simply remove the redundant role="row" from the <tr> elements:

<table>
  <tr>
    <th>Name</th>
    <th>Email</th>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>Alice</td>
    <td>alice@example.com</td>
  </tr>
</table>

The same fix applies if your <table> explicitly has role="table", role="grid", or role="treegrid" — the <tr> elements still don’t need an explicit role="row" because the browser infers it automatically.

Learn more:

MDN Reference

Using ARIA roles on HTML table elements

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MDN Reference

HTML tr element

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W3C Reference

ARIA in HTML specification

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