Free Arabic Fonts, Previewed in Your Own Words

Arabic Vocabulary Lists > Arabic Fonts

Our top pick is Noto Naskh Arabic. It is free under the SIL Open Font License, which allows commercial use, it carries every vowel mark, and it comes in four weights. Type in the box below to see your own words in it and in 15 other free Arabic fonts, then download the one you like from Google Fonts.

How we chose these 16 fonts

We started from the 57 font families Google Fonts lists for Arabic and kept a font only if it passed three checks, all made on 5 October 2026.

1. Its licence page on Google Fonts shows the SIL Open Font License 1.1. As the licence text on Google Fonts puts it, an OFL font can be used, modified and redistributed freely as long as it is not sold by itself. So you can put it in a logo, a paid app or a client's website and owe nobody anything.
2. Google's list of the characters it covers includes all 28 letters, all eight harakat and the dagger alif. A worksheet for learners needs those marks, and when a font lacks them your software quietly borrows them from another font.
3. It does a job the others on the list don't. Several of the 57 are near-duplicates: Reem Kufi alone comes in three versions, Reem Kufi, Reem Kufi Fun and Reem Kufi Ink.

Every download link here goes to the font's own Google Fonts page. No mirror sites, no zip files from strangers.

Which Arabic font style to pick

Pick Naskh for anything people will read at length, and save Kufi, Ruqah and display fonts for headings and logos. Naskh is the style used by default for Arabic on screens, and it has long been the script of books, the Quran included.

Kufi is the oldest Arabic calligraphic style and now shows up mostly in logos and building inscriptions. Ruqah is a plain style made for writing fast, used for everyday handwriting and signs. Learners should get comfortable with Naskh first, because Naskh is the style you will read in print. Our guide on how to read Arabic, step by step starts there, and the Arabic alphabet chart with all four letter forms shows every letter in it.

Our picks by job

Documents and worksheets: Noto Naskh Arabic. It is easy to read at body size, its weights run from 400 to 700 so headings and text can share one family, and because it is part of Google's Noto collection, Noto Sans Arabic and Noto Kufi Arabic match it when you need a screen font or a heading.

If you want the look of a classical printed book, take Amiri instead. Google describes it as a revival of the typeface the Bulaq Press in Cairo pioneered in the early 20th century. It is the only font on this list with italics, though it has just two weights. Scheherazade New, from SIL, is the one to use when your text strays beyond Arabic: its Google Fonts description says it supports every Arabic-script character in Unicode 14.0.

On a website or in an app, set the text in Noto Sans Arabic and the headings in Cairo or Tajawal. Cairo goes all the way to weight 1000 for a really heavy title. If your English text is already in IBM Plex, use IBM Plex Sans Arabic beside it.

For a logo we would reach for Reem Kufi. Google's description of Reem Kufi says its old Kufic style gives "a feeling of something old, historical, or Islamic", which is usually why someone wants a Kufi logo. Qahiri is more ornamental and has one weight. For a handwritten feel, Aref Ruqaa. Rakkas is the loud version of the same style; its Google Fonts description says it is inspired by Ruqah lettering on Egyptian film posters of the 1950s and 1960s.

If what you need is an image rather than a font file, for a card or a social post, our Arabic calligraphy generator turns your text into an image in seven of these fonts (Amiri, Scheherazade New, Reem Kufi, Qahiri, Aref Ruqaa, Rakkas and Lalezar) and five more faces that are not on this list (Katibeh, Alkalami, Blaka and two Nastaliq fonts).

What we left out, and why

Three popular answers to this search did not make the list.

Traditional Arabic is not here. Many people know this Naskh font from Word. But Microsoft's own page for Traditional Arabic lists the download as not available, because the font comes only with Microsoft products, and its copyright line ends "All Rights Reserved". You may already have it in Windows or Office, but putting it on a website or shipping it with a product needs a separate licence, which that page sends you to Monotype's fonts.com to buy. The same page says its design is based on the type of the Amiriyya Press in Cairo, the press Amiri revives, so Amiri is the free way to get that look.

DaFont's Arabic category is not here. It ranks high for this search, and its fonts download free. But of the fonts on the first page of DaFont's Arabic fonts category on 5 October 2026, most were marked "Free for personal use" or were demos. Fine for a birthday card, not for a logo or a book you plan to sell. The category also sits under DaFont's "Foreign look" heading, so check a font's character map before you assume it types Arabic at all.

Nastaliq fonts are not here. Google Fonts carries two, Noto Nastaliq Urdu and Gulzar, and Google's descriptions present both as Urdu fonts. Arabic is usually printed in Naskh, not Nastaliq, one of the differences we cover in Arabic vs Urdu.

How to download and install an Arabic font

Open the font's Google Fonts page from its card above and press Get font. From there you can download the files, or copy the embed code for a website. On Windows, unzip the download, right-click a .ttf file and choose Install. On a Mac, double-click the file and choose Install Font. It then shows up in Word and your other desktop apps.

To type in the font you need an Arabic keyboard layout as well, and a font does not add one. Our online Arabic keyboard, with how to install one on any device, covers that, and the Arabic learning resources hub lists the books, apps and courses we recommend once your fonts are set up.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best free Arabic font?

For most uses, Noto Naskh Arabic. It is in Naskh, the style most Arabic books and screens use, it covers every vowel mark, it comes in four weights from 400 to 700, and its licence, the SIL Open Font License 1.1, allows commercial use. Pick Amiri instead if you want the look of a classical printed book.

Are Arabic fonts from Google Fonts free for commercial use?

The 16 on this page are. Each one's Google Fonts licence page shows the SIL Open Font License 1.1, which lets you use the font in commercial work, embed it in a website or app, and modify it. The one thing you cannot do is sell the font file on its own. Not every Arabic font online works this way, so check the licence before you use one in paid work.

Is Traditional Arabic free to download?

No. Microsoft's page for Traditional Arabic lists its download as not available, because the font is included only with Microsoft products such as Windows and Office, and the copyright line reads All Rights Reserved. Amiri is the free alternative: both are based on the type of the Amiriyya Press, also called the Bulaq Press, in Cairo.

Which Arabic font style should a learner read first?

Naskh. It is the style used by default for Arabic on screens and in most printed books, so it is what textbooks and newspapers will show you. Learn the letters in Naskh first. Kufi and Ruqah change letter shapes enough to slow a beginner down, and they make more sense once Naskh reading is easy.

Do these Arabic fonts show harakat?

Yes, all 16. Google Fonts' coverage data for each font includes the eight harakat (fatha, damma, kasra, the three tanwin endings, shadda and sukun) and the dagger alif. Untick Show harakat in the preview to see how each font looks without them, which is how newspapers and most adult material print Arabic.

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