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SyntaxError: continue must be inside loop - JavaScript | MDN

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Message

SyntaxError: Illegal continue statement: no surrounding iteration statement (V8-based) SyntaxError: Illegal continue statement: 'label' does not denote an iteration statement (V8-based) SyntaxError: continue must be inside loop (Firefox) SyntaxError: 'continue' is only valid inside a loop statement. (Safari) SyntaxError: Cannot continue to the label 'label' as it is not targeting a loop. (Safari)

Error type

SyntaxError.

What went wrong?

continue statements can be used to continue a loop, and using them elsewhere is a syntax error. Alternatively, you can provide a label to the continue statement to continue any loop with that label — however, if the label does not reference a containing statement, another error SyntaxError: label not found will be thrown, and if the label references a statement that is not a loop, a syntax error is still thrown.

Examples

Using continue in callbacks

If you want to proceed with the next iteration in a forEach() loop, use return instead, or convert it to a for...of loop.

js
array.forEach((value) => {
  if (value === 5) {
    continue; // SyntaxError: continue must be inside loop
  }
  // do something with value
});

js
array.forEach((value) => {
  if (value === 5) {
    return;
  }
  // do something with value
});

js
for (const value of array) {
  if (value === 5) {
    continue;
  }
  // do something with value
}

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This page was last modified on Jul 8, 2025 by MDN contributors.

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SyntaxError: continue must be inside loop

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