How to Pass a Component as a Prop in React

React's props model is extremely powerful. One of its most useful features is the ability to pass a component as a prop. This lets you create composable pieces of UI, helping to make your components more reusable.

The trouble is that this can often be difficult to type correctly. Let's fix that.

#

Passing JSX as a Prop

One of the most flexible ways to pass a component as a prop is to get the component to receive JSX. Let's look at the example below:

tsx
interface LayoutProps {
  nav: React.ReactNode;
  children: React.ReactNode;
}
 
const Layout = (props: LayoutProps) => {
  return (
    <>
      <nav>{props.nav}</nav>
      <main>{props.children}</main>
    </>
  );
};
 
<Layout nav={<h1>My Site</h1>}>
  <div>Hello!</div>
</Layout>;

Here, we're passing <h1>My Site</h1> to the nav prop, and <div>Hello!</div> to the children prop.

We're typing our props as React.ReactNode, which is a type that accepts any valid JSX. Note that we're not using React.ReactElement or JSX.Element. I cover why in this article.

#

Passing a Component as a Prop

The second method is, instead of passing in JSX as a prop, we pass in an entire component as a prop.

Some definitions here. JSX is the thing a component returns. <Wrapper /> is JSX. Wrapper is the component.

The simplest way to type this in TypeScript is by using React.ComponentType:

tsx
const Row = (props: {
  icon: React.ComponentType<{
    className?: string;
  }>;
}) => {
  return (
    <div>
      <props.icon className="h-8 w-8" />
    </div>
  );
};
 
<Row icon={UserIcon} />;

Here, we're typing the icon prop as React.ComponentType. We're passing { className?: string } to React.ComponentType, indicating that this is a component that can receive a className prop.

This basically says icon can be any component that can receive a className prop. This is a very flexible type, and it's easy to use.

#

Passing a Native Tag as a Prop

Using React.ElementType lets you pass a native tag as a prop OR a custom component.

tsx
const Row = (props: {
  element: React.ElementType<{
    className?: string;
  }>;
}) => {
  return (
    <div>
      <props.element className="h-8 w-8" />
    </div>
  );
};
 
<Row element={"div"} />;
<Row element={UserIcon} />;

This is an extremely flexible definition and, again, very easy to use. We'll even get autocomplete on all the options we can pass to element.

For more information about React.ComponentType and React.ElementType, check out this exercise in my Advanced React course.

#

Passing Any Component as a Prop and Inferring Its Props

The final method is to be able to receive any component and infer its props. This is very flexible but also extremely complex to type.

In my Advanced React and TypeScript course, I devote half of an entire section to this topic.

The final solution I landed on is documented here.

tsx
import {
  ComponentPropsWithRef,
  ElementType,
  ForwardedRef,
  forwardRef,
  useRef,
} from "react";
 
type FixedForwardRef = <T, P = {}>(
  render: (
    props: P,
    ref: React.Ref<T>
  ) => React.ReactNode
) => (
  props: P & React.RefAttributes<T>
) => React.ReactNode;
 
const fixedForwardRef =
  forwardRef as FixedForwardRef;
 
type DistributiveOmit<
  T,
  TOmitted extends PropertyKey
> = T extends any ? Omit<T, TOmitted> : never;
 
export const UnwrappedAnyComponent = <
  TAs extends ElementType
>(
  props: {
    as?: TAs;
  } & DistributiveOmit<
    ComponentPropsWithRef<
      ElementType extends TAs ? "a" : TAs
    >,
    "as"
  >,
  ref: ForwardedRef<any>
) => {
  const { as: Comp = "a", ...rest } = props;
  return <Comp {...rest} ref={ref}></Comp>;
};
 
// Can be passed 'as' prop but defaults to 'a'
const AnyComponent = fixedForwardRef(
  UnwrappedAnyComponent
);
 
// Defaulted to 'a'
<AnyComponent href="/" />;
 
// It's now a div, so can't be an href!
<AnyComponent as="div" href="/" />;
Type '{ as: "div"; href: string; }' is not assignable to type 'IntrinsicAttributes & { as?: "div" | undefined; } & Omit<Omit<DetailedHTMLProps<HTMLAttributes<HTMLDivElement>, HTMLDivElement>, "ref"> & { ...; }, "as"> & RefAttributes<...>'.
  Property 'href' does not exist on type 'IntrinsicAttributes & { as?: "div" | undefined; } & Omit<Omit<DetailedHTMLProps<HTMLAttributes<HTMLDivElement>, HTMLDivElement>, "ref"> & { ...; }, "as"> & RefAttributes<...>'. Did you mean 'ref'?2322Type '{ as: "div"; href: string; }' is not assignable to type 'IntrinsicAttributes & { as?: "div" | undefined; } & Omit<Omit<DetailedHTMLProps<HTMLAttributes<HTMLDivElement>, HTMLDivElement>, "ref"> & { ...; }, "as"> & RefAttributes<...>'.
  Property 'href' does not exist on type 'IntrinsicAttributes & { as?: "div" | undefined; } & Omit<Omit<DetailedHTMLProps<HTMLAttributes<HTMLDivElement>, HTMLDivElement>, "ref"> & { ...; }, "as"> & RefAttributes<...>'. Did you mean 'ref'?

#

Which Should I Choose?

If you're in a situation where you can choose either of the above approaches, I would lean towards passing JSX as a prop.

It's not only easy to type (React.ReactNode) but also very performance-friendly. JSX passed to a component as a prop is not re-rendered when that parent component re-renders. This can be a huge performance boost.

But if you do need the other methods, then React.ElementType and React.ComponentType are both easy to type and easy to use.

If you can, stay away from using the open-ended 'as' prop. But if you do need it, then the description in my advanced course will help.

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