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Performance · Jan 22, 2026 · 7 min read

Core Web Vitals in 2026: what changed and what to do about it

INP replaced FID. The new thresholds are tighter. Here's what you need to fix.

Core Web Vitals in 2026: what changed and what to do about it

The new bar

  • LCP: under 2.5s (good), under 1.5s (great)
  • INP: under 200ms (good), under 100ms (great) — replaces FID
  • CLS: under 0.1 (good), under 0.05 (great)

The 5 biggest LCP killers

  • Hero image not preloaded or in wrong format (use AVIF/WebP)
  • Web fonts loading after first paint
  • Render-blocking JavaScript above the fold
  • Server response time over 600ms
  • No CDN — serving from a single region

The 3 biggest INP killers

  • Heavy JavaScript handlers on input events
  • Third-party tags hijacking the main thread
  • React re-rendering large trees on every keystroke

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