NavigateEvent: canIntercept property

Baseline 2026

Newly available

Since ⁨January 2026⁩, this feature works across the latest devices and browser versions. This feature might not work in older devices or browsers.

The canIntercept read-only property of the NavigateEvent interface returns true if the navigation can be intercepted and have its URL rewritten, or false otherwise

There are several rules around when a navigation can be intercepted. For example:

You can't intercept cross-origin navigations.
You can intercept http or https URLs if only the path, query, and fragment portions of the new URL differ from the current URL.
You can intercept file URLs if only the query and fragment portions of the new URL differ.
For other URL types you can intercept the navigation if only the fragment portion differs.

See the spec for more explanation on when a Document can have its URL rewritten, including a table of examples.

Value

A boolean value—true if the navigation can be intercepted, false if not.

Examples

navigation.addEventListener("navigate", (event) => {
  // Some navigations, e.g. cross-origin navigations, we
  // cannot intercept. Let the browser handle those normally.
  if (!event.canIntercept) {
    return;
  }

  // Don't intercept fragment navigations or downloads.
  if (event.hashChange || event.downloadRequest !== null) {
    return;
  }

  event.intercept({
    handler() {
      if (event.formData) {
        processFormDataAndUpdateUI(event.formData, event.signal);
      } else {
        doSinglePageAppNav(event.destination, event.signal);
      }
    },
  });
});