Without <label>, you need to click directly on a checkbox in order to toggle it:
Some optionIf you use <label>, the text after the checkbox becomes clickable:<input type="checkbox"> Some option
For styling via CSS, you may sometimes need another, more verbose, variant of this element: You can link a label to its control by referring to the control’s ID via the label’s attribute for (thanks to Evgeny Gorbachev for mentioning this use case for this attribute).<label><input type="checkbox"> Some option</label>
<label> works the same for radio buttons (type="radio"). It also works for text fields where you can use the labels to focus (activate) the fields (thanks, Paul Vorbach):<style> input:checked + label { color: green; } </style> <input id="check1" type="checkbox"> <label for="check1">Some option</label>
You can read more about <label> on MDN.