What font does The New York Times use?

Sizes, weights and spacing by role

These are computed values from the live page, which is what the Font Inspector panel shows when you click each element.

The main font stack in the CSS:

font-family: nyt-imperial, georgia, "times new roman", times, "Songti SC", simsun, serif;

• Headlines are not h1 or h2 elements but styled paragraphs, so a tag-based audit misses them. The sizes above come from measuring the largest text on the page.
• Cheltenham is used Light, 300, for secondary headlines and Bold, 700, for the lead story. Light serif headlines are a Times signature.
• Section labels are Franklin at 11px, uppercase, with wide 0.127em tracking.
• The CSS declares an entire second system, nyt-fact, nyt-fact-deck and nyt-fact-display, plus nyt-karnak and nyt-athletic-slab, for other sections of the site.

About the fonts, and whether you can use them

Finding a font does not license it. More in how to get a font you found, legally.

Get a similar look with a free font

This starter uses PT Serif, which is open source, with the sizes and spacing measured above. It is an approximation, not a copy of The New York Times’ brand typeface.

/* Approximates the The New York Times look with a free font */
body {
  font-family: "PT Serif", Georgia, serif;
}
h1 {
  font-size: 3rem; /* 48px */
  font-weight: 700;
  line-height: 1.1;
}
p {
  font-size: 0.875rem; /* 14px */
  font-weight: 400;
  line-height: 1.36;
  letter-spacing: 0.007em;
}

How we checked

We opened nytimes.com in Chrome on November 5, 2026 and read the computed styles of its visible text: the declared font stack, the font actually rendered, and how much of the page’s text each family sets. That is the same data the Font Inspector extension shows under Fonts on this page. We re-check these pages periodically, and the date above shows the last inspection.

The New York Times and its typefaces are trademarks of their respective owners. Font Inspector is not affiliated with The New York Times.