Dry flat
The item is meant to be dried lying flat.
Easily confused with
How to read it
A square with a horizontal line across the middle means drying the item on a flat surface once excess water has been removed. A square with lines inside marks natural drying, like line drying; a circle inside marks tumble drying.
Where a garment's own label or its manufacturer says otherwise, that takes precedence.
Differences by country or standard
The single horizontal line means flat drying in both the Canadian government's guide and GINETEX's international guide. In the international version, a second horizontal line marks drip flat drying.
Australia's consumer regulator, the ACCC, also lists versions of the natural drying symbols for drying in the shade: flat drying, drip flat drying, line drying and drip line drying in the shade.
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Read next
- Next in Laundry symbolsDrip dryThe item is meant to be hung up to dry while still soaking wet, so that the water drips out.
- The same shape in African flagsFlag of AngolaAngola’s flag is red over black with a yellow emblem in the centre: part of a cogwheel, a machete and a five-pointed star. Its constitution says the red is the blood shed by Angolans under colonial oppression, in the liberation struggle and in defence of the country, and the black is the African continent; the cogwheel stands for workers and industry, the machete for peasants, farming and the armed struggle, the star for international solidarity and progress, and their yellow for the country’s wealth.
More laundry symbols
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols drawn with lines or squares and rectangles.
Sources
- Textiles — Care labelling code using symbols, ISO 3758, ISO, Abstract (ISO 3758:2023)
- Standard Guide for Care Symbols for Care Instructions on Textile Products, ASTM D5489, ASTM International, section 4.6 (ASTM D5489-25)
- Textile Care Symbols, GINETEX, the International Association for Textile Care Labelling, p. 7
- Guide to Apparel and Textile Care Symbols, CAN/CGSB-86.1-2003, Office of Consumer Affairs, Government of Canada, p. 4
- Care labelling on clothing and textiles guide, Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC Product Safety)
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed September 24, 2026. How we research
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