The CSSCharsetRule interface represents a @charset rule in a CSS style sheet. The value of the encoding attribute does not affect the encoding of text data in the DOM objects; this encoding is always UTF-16. After a stylesheet is loaded, the value of the encoding attribute is the value found in the @charset rule. If there was no @charset in the original document, then no CSSCharsetRule is created. The value of the encoding attribute may also be used as a hint for the encoding used on serialization of the style sheet.

The value of the @charset rule (and therefore of the CSSCharsetRule) may not correspond to the encoding the document actually came in; character encoding information e.g. in an HTTP header, has priority (see CSS document representation) but this is not reflected in the CSSCharsetRule.