What Is the Best Font for a Resume?

The short answer: six fonts that always work

Pick from a small set of clean, ubiquitous typefaces and you cannot go wrong. The reliable sans-serif options are Calibri, Arial, and Helvetica; the reliable serif options are Georgia, Garamond, and Cambria. Here is how they sort out by type and what each is best for: Calibri is a modern sans-serif and the default in much of Microsoft Office — soft, friendly, and a strong all-purpose pick for almost any role. Arial is a neutral, universal sans-serif that is best when you want maximum compatibility and a no-nonsense look. Helvetica is a crisp, design-forward sans-serif best for creative, design, and tech roles where a polished look matters. On the serif side, Georgia was literally designed for screen reading and is best when you want a traditional feel that still renders sharply on a monitor. Garamond is an elegant, space-efficient serif best for academic, legal, and senior roles, and it can buy you a line or two when you are fighting for space. Cambria is a sturdy serif designed for on-screen clarity and is a safe traditional default that holds up at small sizes.

Every font on this list shares the traits that matter: it is widely installed (so it renders the same on the reviewer's machine), it has distinct, well-spaced letterforms that an ATS can read, and it stays legible down to 10pt. You do not need to agonize over which one — open your resume in two or three of them, see which fits your content on one page most comfortably, and commit. The differences between these fonts are aesthetic, not functional; all six are safe.

Serif vs. sans-serif: which should you use?

Serif fonts (Georgia, Garamond, Cambria, Times New Roman) have small feet or strokes at the ends of letters; sans-serif fonts (Calibri, Arial, Helvetica) do not. Both are completely professional and both parse fine in modern ATS software, so this is a stylistic call, not a right-or-wrong one. The rough convention: serifs read as traditional, established, and formal, which suits law, finance, academia, government, and senior/executive resumes; sans-serifs read as modern, clean, and approachable, which suits tech, startups, design, marketing, and most early-career resumes.

A practical middle path many people use: a serif for headers and a sans-serif for body text (or vice versa). Done with restraint — one serif, one sans, nothing more — this adds a little visual structure without looking busy. But it is entirely optional. A single well-chosen font used consistently throughout the document always looks clean, and "one font, two sizes" is the simplest path to a professional result. When in doubt, default to a sans-serif like Calibri or Arial for screen-first reading; default to a serif like Georgia or Garamond when you want a more formal, traditional tone.

Font size and spacing rules

Size is where most resumes go wrong, usually by being too small to read or too large to fit. The rule of thumb: body text (job descriptions, bullet points, skills) at 10–12pt, with 11pt as the safe default that works for almost everyone. Section headers (Experience, Education, Skills) at 14–16pt so they create clear visual breaks. Your name at the top can go a little bigger — 18–22pt — to anchor the page. Keep contact details at the same size as your body text, around 10–11pt.

If your resume is overflowing onto a second page, do not drop the body below 10pt to force it — sub-10pt text reads as cramped and can blur in print or when an ATS re-renders the file. Instead, trim content, tighten wording, switch to a more space-efficient font like Garamond, or reduce margins slightly (0.5–1 inch is the accepted range). For spacing, use single or 1.15 line spacing within sections and a little extra space between sections; consistent spacing does as much for readability as the font choice itself. White space is not wasted space — a slightly less dense page is easier to scan, and scannability is the whole point.

Fonts and formatting to avoid

The fastest way to undermine a strong resume is a font that signals you did not take the document seriously. Comic Sans is the textbook example — it is informal to the point of being a punchline and should never appear on a resume. The same goes for script and handwriting fonts (Brush Script, Lobster, Pacifico), heavily decorative or display fonts, and anything with unusual letterforms an ATS may misread. Ultra-thin or heavily condensed faces are a subtler trap: they can look elegant on screen at large sizes but turn into a gray smear at 10pt or when printed. If a font is hard to read at body size, it is the wrong font.

Times New Roman deserves a special note. It is not a "bad" font — it is perfectly readable and 100% ATS-safe, which is why it was the default for decades. The issue is precisely that it was the default for decades: to many recruiters it now reads as dated, generic, or as a sign you used a stock template without thinking. If you love a serif look, Georgia, Garamond, or Cambria give you the same formality with a more deliberate, modern feel. Times New Roman will not get you rejected, but it rarely helps you stand out.

A few formatting rules round this out, because the font is only part of the picture. Use one font for the whole document, or at most one for headers and one for body — three or more fonts looks chaotic. Keep text black on a white background; colored or light-gray text can fail print and accessibility, and some ATS parsers choke on it. Avoid putting important text inside images, headers/footers, text boxes, or tables, since many ATS systems skip those regions entirely. And use bold and italics sparingly for emphasis rather than underlining everything. Clean and consistent always beats clever.

So, what font should your resume be?

Use a clean, professional, widely-installed font at 10–12pt for body text and 14–16pt for headers. If you want modern and screen-friendly, pick Calibri, Arial, or Helvetica; if you want traditional and formal, pick Georgia, Garamond, or Cambria. Any of these is ATS-safe and recruiter-safe — the difference between them is taste, not outcome — so choose the one that fits your content on one page most cleanly and use it consistently throughout.

Then get out of your own way: skip Comic Sans and every decorative or script font, do not shrink body text below 10pt to cram in content, keep it black on white in a single column, and remember that Times New Roman — though safe — reads as dated. The best resume font is the one nobody notices, because it lets your experience be the thing that stands out. If you would rather not think about any of this, building your resume with an ATS-friendly template handles the typography for you.