This preset extends the default React Native preset (@react-native/babel-preset) and adds support for tree shaking, bundle splitting, React Server Components, Hermes compilation, advanced dead-code elimination, reanimated, Expo DOM components, server-side rendering, and more...

You can use this preset in any React Native project as a drop-in replacement for @react-native/babel-preset.

If you have problems with the code in this repository, please file issues & bug reports at https://github.com/expo/expo.

Expo Bundler Spec Compliance

A bundler must follow these requirements if they are to be considered spec compliant for use with a universal React (Expo) project.

Options

`react-compiler`

Settings to pass to babel-plugin-react-compiler. Set as false to disable the plugin. As of SDK 51, you must also enable experiments.reactCompiler: true in the app.json.

[
  'babel-preset-expo',
  {
    'react-compiler': {
      sources: (filename) => {
        // Match file names to include in the React Compiler.
        return filename.includes('src/path/to/dir');
      },
    },
  },
];

`minifyTypeofWindow`

Set minifyTypeofWindow: true to transform typeof window checks in your code, e.g. if (typeof window === 'object') -> if (true) in clients. This is useful when you're using libraries that mock the window object on native or in the server.

[
  'babel-preset-expo',
  {
    // If your native app doesn't polyfill `window` then setting this to `false` can reduce bundle size.
    native: {
      minifyTypeofWindow: true,
    },
  },
];

Defaults to true for server environments, and false for client environments to support legacy browser polyfills and web workers.

`reanimated`

boolean, defaults to true. Set reanimated: false to disable adding the react-native-reanimated/plugin when react-native-reanimated is installed.

`worklets`

boolean, boolean, defaults to true. Set worklets: false to disable adding the react-native-worklets/plugin when react-native-worklets is installed. Applies only when using standalone react-native-worklets or react-native-reanimated 4.

`jsxRuntime`

classic | automatic, defaults to automatic

automatic automatically convert JSX to JS without the need to import React from 'react' in every file. Be sure to follow the rest of the setup guide after enabling this, otherwise ESLint and other tools will throw warnings.
classic does not automatically import anything, React must imported into every file that uses JSX syntax.

[
  'babel-preset-expo',
  {
    jsxRuntime: 'classic',
  },
];

This property is passed down to @babel/plugin-transform-react-jsx. This flag does nothing when useTransformReactJSXExperimental is set to true because @babel/plugin-transform-react-jsx is omitted.

`jsxImportSource`

string, defaults to react

This option allows specifying a custom import source for importing functions.

[
  'babel-preset-expo',
  {
    jsxRuntime: 'automatic',
    jsxImportSource: 'react',
  },
];

This property is passed down to @babel/plugin-transform-react-jsx. This options does nothing when jsxRuntime is not set to automatic.

`lazyImports`

Changes Babel's compiled import statements to be lazily evaluated when their imported bindings are used for the first time.

Note: this option has an effect only when the disableImportExportTransform option is set to false. On Android and iOS, disableImportExportTransform defaults to false, and on web it defaults to true to allow for tree shaking.

This can improve the initial load time of your app because evaluating dependencies up front is sometimes entirely un-necessary, particularly when the dependencies have no side effects.

The value of lazyImports has a few possible effects:

null - @react-native/babel-preset will handle it. (Learn more about it here: https://github.com/facebook/metro/commit/23e3503dde5f914f3e642ef214f508d0a699851d)
false - No lazy initialization of any imported module.
true - Lazy-init all imported modules except local imports (e.g., ./foo), certain Expo packages that have side effects, and the two cases mentioned here.
Array<string> - babel-plugin-transform-modules-commonjs will handle it.
(string) => boolean - babel-plugin-transform-modules-commonjs will handle it.

If you choose to do this, you can also access the list of Expo packages that have side effects by using const lazyImportsBlacklist = require('babel-preset-expo/lazy-imports-blacklist'); which returns a Set.

default: null

[
    'babel-preset-expo',
    {
        lazyImports: true
    }
],

`disableImportExportTransform`

Pass true to disable the transform that converts import/export to module.exports. Avoid setting this property directly. If you're using Metro, set experimentalImportSupport: true instead to ensure the entire pipeline is configured correctly.

// metro.config.js

config.transformer.getTransformOptions = async () => ({
  transform: {
    // Setting this to `true` will automatically toggle `disableImportExportTransform` in `babel-preset-expo`.
    experimentalImportSupport: true,
  },
});

If undefined (default), this will be set automatically via caller.supportsStaticESM which is set by the bundler.

[
    'babel-preset-expo',
    {
        disableImportExportTransform: true
    }
],

`unstable_transformProfile`

Changes the engine preset in @react-native/babel-preset based on the JavaScript engine that is being targeted. In Expo SDK 50 and greater, this is automatically set based on the jsEngine option in your app.json.

`unstable_transformImportMeta`

Enable that transform that converts import.meta to globalThis.__ExpoImportMetaRegistry, defaults to false in client bundles and true for server bundles.

Note: Use this option at your own risk. If the JavaScript engine supports import.meta natively, this transformation may interfere with the native implementation.

`enableBabelRuntime`

Passed to @react-native/babel-preset.

`disableFlowStripTypesTransform`

Passed to @react-native/babel-preset.

Platform-specific options

All options can be passed in the platform-specific objects native and web to provide different settings on different platforms. For example, if you'd like to only apply disableImportExportTransform on web, use the following:

[
  'babel-preset-expo',
  {
    // Default value:
    disableImportExportTransform: false,

    web: {
      // Web-specific value:
      disableImportExportTransform: true,
    },
  },
];

Platform-specific options have higher priority over top-level options.

Babel Loader

The Babel loading mechanism must include the following properties on its caller.

platform

A platform property denoting the target platform. If the platform is not defined, it will default to using web when the bundler is webpack -- this is temporary and will throw an error in the future.

Value	Description
`ios`	Runs on iOS devices
`android`	Runs on Android devices
`web`	Runs in web browsers

bundler

A bundler property denoting the name of the bundler that is being used to create the JavaScript bundle. If the bundler is not defined, it will default to checking if a babel-loader is used, if so then webpack will be used, otherwise it will default to metro.

Value	Description
`metro`	Bundling with Metro
`webpack`	Bundling with Webpack

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Package last updated on 07 Nov 2025

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babel-preset-expo