SVG to React Native

Web JSX Will Not Run on a Phone

You convert your icon with a normal JSX tool, paste it into a screen, and nothing appears. No error, no warning, just empty space. React Native has no <path> element, so your markup means nothing to it. This SVG to React Native converter fixes that.

Every element is swapped for its react-native-svg component, and the import line is written for you.

We also flag what will not survive the trip, because finding out on a physical device is a much slower way to learn it.

How to Convert an SVG to a React Native Component

1. Install react-native-svg. Expo already has it. Bare projects need a rebuild.
2. Paste your SVG. The preview confirms it parsed.
3. Read the warnings. Filters and animation get called out here.
4. Choose your sizing. Remove width and height to control size from props.
5. Copy the component. The import line lists only what you actually use.

That first step trips people constantly. This is a native module, not a JavaScript package, so reloading Metro does nothing. You need pod install and a fresh build.

Why react-native-svg Needs Different Element Names

On the web, JSX compiles down to real DOM elements. React Native has no DOM at all — it renders native views.

So there is nothing for <path> to become. react-native-svg supplies real components instead, and every tag has to be swapped:

Attributes still need camelCase, exactly as on the web. That part carries over from the SVG to JSX converter.

Two things get removed entirely. The xmlns declaration means nothing outside a browser, and CSS class names have no stylesheet to match against.

What Does Not Survive the Move

react-native-svg covers most of the spec, and the gaps are worth knowing before you ship:

• Filters. Blur, drop shadows, colour matrices — none of them render. This is the big one.
• SMIL animation. <animate> tags do nothing. Use Animated or Reanimated instead.
• Embedded stylesheets. A <style> block inside the SVG is ignored.
• Font families. Text resolves against fonts registered with the app, not your design machine.

We detect the first three and warn you in the output panel. In our experience the filter gap causes the most wasted time, because the icon renders — just without the shadow that made it look designed.

The honest workaround for text: convert it to paths before exporting. It removes the font problem entirely at the cost of editability.

Sizing and Colouring a React Native SVG Icon

The most common bug we see on this page is an icon that converts perfectly and renders as nothing.

On the web, an SVG without dimensions falls back to a sensible default. React Native does not do that. Pass explicit numbers:

<Icon width={24} height={24} color="#7c3aed" />

Colour works differently too. There is no CSS cascade, so currentColor resolves from a color prop on the Svg element rather than from a parent text style.

Turn on prop forwarding and both become controllable from the outside, which is how most icon systems end up structured.

When a Raster Image Beats a Vector

Every path becomes a real native view. For an icon that is fine. For a detailed illustration with hundreds of paths, it is not.

We have seen list screens drop frames purely from complex vector artwork in each row. A flat image scrolls better.

The rule we give: vectors for anything that must scale or change colour, raster for decorative artwork. Our SVG to PNG converter handles the export at the density you need.

Need to tidy the source first? The online SVG editor lets you inspect and clean the markup before converting.

Other Targets From the Same Source

Building for more than one platform? The same SVG converts to a typed TSX component for React on the web, or to a Vue single-file component.

Each target has genuinely different rules. Vue in particular needs no attribute rewriting at all, which surprises people coming from React.

Frequently Asked Questions

The Short Version

Install the library, paste your markup, copy the component. Converting SVG to React Native means swapping every element, and this does it along with the import line.

Then set explicit width and height. That one step fixes the invisible-icon problem before it starts.