By default, a custom taxonomy panel is not added to the Gutenberg editor. That means authors are not able to select terms in the editor. That’s a problem. In this quick tip, let me show you how to turn on the feature. [It’s pretty easy.]

Gutenberg uses the REST API. When you register a custom taxonomy, by default, the taxonomy is not shown in the REST API. I’ll show you in the video below.
Let’s walk through it together.
The Code
Here is a link to the Books plugin gist if you want to work along with me.
In the configuration arguments where you register the custom taxonomy, add the following configuration parameter:
'show_in_rest' => true, // Needed for tax to appear in Gutenberg editor
For example, let’s say you are registering a Genre taxonomy. The registration arguments for this custom taxonomy might be:
$labels = [ // left out for brevity. ]; // Configuration parameters for the Genre taxonomy. $args = [ 'hierarchical' => true, 'labels' => $labels, 'show_ui' => true, 'show_admin_column' => true, 'show_in_rest' => true, // Needed for tax to appear in Gutenberg editor. 'query_var' => true, 'rewrite' => [ 'slug' => 'genre' ], ]; register_taxonomy( 'genre', [ 'book' ], $args );
Go Deeper
Want to go deeper into custom taxonomies? Check out these resources:
- WordPress Custom Taxonomy Basics
- Developer’s Guide to Differentiating WordPress Content Taxonomies and Terms
register_taxonomy
in WordPress Codex- WordPress Built-in and Custom Taxonomies and Terms Series
Thank you so much for this article which very clear and so helpful ! It’s worked for me.
I was stuck with this problem and I can now sleep on both my ears !
Thank you Tonya !
You were the only one with a clear answer to show this issue, I was dealing with it for hours…. thank you I was able to make it work.
Thank you