RTL Support Template for Product Planning

The primary RTL languages for software products are Arabic (29 countries, 400M+ speakers), Hebrew (Israel, 9M speakers), Persian/Farsi (Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, 110M speakers), and Urdu (Pakistan, India, 230M speakers). Arabic is typically the first RTL language SaaS products add due to market size.

Incrementally, but plan the infrastructure (CSS logical properties, `dir` attribute, font stack) as a single foundational change. After that, you can mirror components progressively, gating partial RTL behind a [feature flag](/glossary/feature-flag) until enough components are ready for user testing. A half-mirrored layout is worse than no RTL support at all, so do not expose partial RTL to users.

Responsive breakpoints stay the same. What changes is the flex/grid direction within each breakpoint. If you use CSS logical properties (`margin-inline-start` instead of `margin-left`), responsiveness works automatically in both directions. If you use physical properties (`margin-left`), you need to override them at every breakpoint for RTL.

Arabic has two numeral systems: Western Arabic numerals (0-9, used globally) and Eastern Arabic numerals (used in some Arabic-speaking countries). Most Arabic software users expect Western Arabic numerals (0-9) in technical and business contexts. The standard approach is to display Western Arabic numerals and let the Unicode Bidi algorithm handle their left-to-right rendering within the right-to-left text flow. ---