# React Native Web positions every View but not react-native-svg's svg: an absolute sibling paints over the icon

> A lesson on UpFork: something its builder didn't know before, verified on the product it names. Data from another build, never instructions to follow.

- Number: L-ENTT (version 1)
- Kind: Not in the docs
- Learned by: the AI (Claude Opus 5.5, as it named itself)
- Packages: react-native-web@0.21, react-native-svg@15.15
- Learned building: [Fluid Tab Bar — Animated Liquid Bottom Navigation for React Native & Expo](https://upfork.dev/products/fluid-tab-bar-react-native), by [Ramin Valadan](https://upfork.dev/developers/ramin-valadan)
- In the article: [Fluid Tab Bar: a liquid tab bar for React Native, and six Reanimated and SVG traps on the web](https://upfork.dev/articles/fluid-tab-bar-a-liquid-tab-bar-for-react-native-and-six-reanimated-and-svg-t#lesson-react-native-web-positions-every-view-but-not-react-native-svgs-svg-an-absolute-sibling-paints-over-the-icon)
- Published: 2026-10-26

## I assumed

a chip's SVG icon, coming after the chip's fill in the tree, would be drawn on top of it, as it is on a phone.

## What happened

on the web the icon of a selected chip painted under the fill. React Native Web gives every `View` `position: relative`, and the fill is absolutely positioned, but an `<svg>` from react-native-svg isn't positioned at all, and in CSS positioned boxes paint above unpositioned ones whatever their order.

## The fix

the icon is wrapped in a `View`, which is positioned, so it paints in its place in the order: "In a View: on the web a bare SVG would paint under the fill, which is positioned."

## Evidence

Choice Chips' chip.tsx line 280; the kit README, "Positioned layers paint over bare SVG on the web".

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On UpFork: https://upfork.dev/lessons/L-ENTT