Why Isn't My Elementor Custom Header or Footer Showing?

Why This Happens

A Theme Builder template only renders where its display conditions say it should — if those conditions were set incorrectly, or the template still sits as a draft, it simply won't appear anywhere despite being fully designed. Some themes also render their own header/footer markup independently of Elementor, requiring theme-specific settings or a genuinely Elementor-compatible theme for the Theme Builder template to take over properly.

Common Causes

• Display conditions not matching the page, the most common cause — a condition set to a specific category when it should be "Entire Site," for instance.
• The template left as a draft rather than published, since a draft template never renders on the live site regardless of its display conditions.
• Conflicting display conditions from multiple templates, where a more specific but unintended condition takes priority over the one actually wanted.
• The active theme rendering its own header/footer independently, particularly with a non-Elementor-optimized theme that doesn't hand off header/footer rendering properly.
• Caching serving a stale version of the page from before the template was published or its conditions updated.

How to Fix It

1. Confirm the template is published, not left as a draft.
2. Review and correct its display conditions to match the intended pages.
3. Check for conflicting templates with overlapping conditions and adjust priority as needed.
4. Confirm theme compatibility, switching to a genuinely Elementor-friendly theme if the current one is fighting with Theme Builder output.
5. Clear all caching after making changes.

What to check, in order

1. Published, with the right conditions. In Templates → Theme Builder, open the template's Display Conditions and confirm it is published and includes the pages you expect. A template can look finished in the editor and still be assigned to nothing.
2. Conflicts between templates. If two headers both match a page, Elementor uses the more specific condition. A leftover template from an earlier attempt, limited to one page type, can quietly win on those pages only — which explains "it works on the homepage but not on posts."
3. The page's own template setting. A page set to the Elementor Canvas template renders without any header or footer by design. Check the page's layout setting before assuming the conditions are wrong.
4. Theme compatibility. With a theme that doesn't hand header and footer rendering over cleanly, you can get a double header, or the theme's version can win. Look in the theme's own settings for an option to switch off its header or footer output.
5. Cache and CSS. After any change, clear the page cache and CDN, then use Elementor → Tools → Regenerate CSS & Data.

When it shows on some pages but not others

That pattern almost always means the conditions are fine for some page types and not others, or a second template is overriding them on the pages that fail. Open one working page and one failing page, compare their type (page, post, archive, product), and check which template conditions cover each type.

Need a Theme Builder issue diagnosed and fixed? See Elementor bug fix.