Bar chart color palettes

Tested bar chart color palettes with hex codes, organised by how many bars or segments you need to tell apart. Every palette below reads correctly in the common forms of color blindness and prints acceptably in greyscale. Paste the codes into the bar chart maker or any other tool.

Single-color bar charts

Most bar charts need exactly one color. Pick a mid-tone with enough weight to hold value labels: slate blue, ink black, forest green, or a muted brick red all work. These are the defaults we reach for.

#3a6b8a · #1a1714 · #2f6f4e · #c8442a · #7a5c99

Two-color bar charts

Two colors are for two jobs: a highlight against a neutral, or two series side by side. For a highlight, pair an accent with warm grey. For two related series (this year vs last year), use a dark and a light shade of one hue — dark red and lighter red is a classic, professional pair. For two unrelated series, blue and orange are the most distinguishable pair for color-blind readers.

Highlight + neutral

#c8442a · #c9c2b4

Dark red + lighter red (related series)

#8f2d1c · #e39a8b

Blue + orange (unrelated series, color-blind safe)

#3a6b8a · #e08a2e

Palettes for 3 and 4 bars

With three or four bars that each need a distinct color, spread the hues around the wheel and vary lightness so no two neighbours look alike in greyscale. Blue, orange, green, and purple is the workhorse set.

Four bars, distinct categories

#3a6b8a · #e08a2e · #2f8f5b · #7a5c99

Four bars, muted / editorial

#1a1714 · #c8442a · #8a7f6a · #3a6b8a

Palettes for 5 and 6 bars

Past four colors, hues start to collide, so add a teal and a warm yellow, and check the chart in greyscale. If the six bars are a ranking (largest to smallest), you don't need six colors at all — one color sorted descending is clearer. Use a six-color palette only when each bar is a genuinely different category that readers must identify by color, such as a legend on a grouped bar chart.

Six bars, distinct categories

#3a6b8a · #e08a2e · #2f8f5b · #7a5c99 · #2a9d8f · #d9b23a

7 colors for a stacked bar chart

Seven colors that go well together on a stacked bar chart is the hardest case, because every segment touches its neighbours and small segments are thin. Two strategies work. If the segments are ordered (survey scales, budget tiers, maintenance activity stages), use a single-hue ramp from light to dark — it stays readable at any segment width. If the segments are unrelated categories, give the three biggest segments strong hues and step the remaining four down through greys, so the eye lands on what matters.

Ordered segments: single-hue ramp

#e6eef3 · #c3d4e0 · #9fbacb · #78a0b5 · #53859d · #3a6b8a · #244d66

Unrelated segments: three hues + greys

#3a6b8a · #e08a2e · #2f8f5b · #8a8378 · #a8a196 · #c3bdb2 · #dcd7cd

Color-blind safe palettes

Roughly 8% of men and 0.5% of women have some form of color-vision deficiency, mostly red-green. The palettes above already avoid red-green pairs, but if accessibility is a hard requirement, use the Okabe–Ito set below, which was designed to remain distinct under deuteranopia, protanopia, and tritanopia. Five of its colors are dark enough to carry white text on the bar.

#0072b2 · #e69f00 · #009e73 · #cc79a7 · #56b4e9 · #d55e00 · #f0e442 · #000000

Whatever palette you pick, also encode the difference some other way — a direct label on each bar, a sort order, or a pattern — so the chart does not depend on color alone.

Sequential and diverging ramps

Use a sequential ramp (light → dark, one hue) when the bars represent an ordered quantity, such as age bands or income tiers. Use a diverging ramp when values have a meaningful middle — agree/disagree scales, gain/loss, above/below average. The safest diverging pair is blue to orange through a light grey midpoint.

Sequential (5 steps)

#e6eef3 · #b3cbd9 · #78a0b5 · #3a6b8a · #244d66

Diverging blue–orange (5 steps)

#244d66 · #78a0b5 · #e6e1d6 · #f0b579 · #c96a1b

How to apply a palette

In the bar chart maker, open the Style panel and paste a hex code into the bar color field; for stacked and grouped charts, set one color per series in the same order as your columns. Keep the background off-white or white, keep gridlines light grey, and keep axis text dark — the palette is for the bars only. For the reasoning behind these choices (one color vs two vs many), read bar chart color choices.