First Contentful Paint
A web performance metric measuring the time from page load start to the first visible text, image, or non-blank canvas being rendered.
Definition
First Contentful Paint (FCP) is a web performance metric that measures the time from when a page starts loading to when any part of the page's content — text, image, SVG, or a non-blank `<canvas>` — is first painted on screen.
FCP is one of Lighthouse's lab metrics and is reported in Google's CrUX field dataset. Google's published thresholds at the 75th percentile are "good" ≤1.8s, "needs improvement" ≤3.0s, and "poor" >3.0s. FCP is not itself a Core Web Vital — it captures the first pixel of content, while the related Largest Contentful Paint waits for the largest above-the-fold element. FCP is commonly improved by reducing render-blocking resources and server response time.
Examples
Effect of a render-blocking script
An e-commerce homepage paints its first text — a header logo — at 1.2s, giving an FCP of 1.2s. Adding a render-blocking analytics script in the `<head>` delays first paint to 2.5s, dropping FCP into the "needs improvement" bucket.
Sources
Related terms
- Largest Contentful PaintA Core Web Vitals metric measuring how long the largest visible content element on a page takes to render after loading begins.
- Core Web VitalsA set of three Google metrics that measure real-world page experience: loading speed, interactivity and visual stability.
- Render-Blocking ResourcesResources — typically CSS and synchronous JavaScript — the browser must fetch and parse before it can paint the first frame of a page.
Where QueryCatch uses this
Last updated: 10/05/2026