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Programming

What is the difference between *args and **kwargs in Python?

Short answer

*args lets a function accept any number of extra positional arguments, collected into a tuple, while **kwargs collects any number of extra keyword arguments into a dictionary.

Both let you write functions that accept a flexible, unknown number of arguments — the names "args" and "kwargs" are just convention; the important part is the * and ** symbols.

*args example

def add_all(*args):
    return sum(args)

add_all(1, 2, 3)      # args = (1, 2, 3), returns 6
add_all(1, 2, 3, 4)   # args = (1, 2, 3, 4), returns 10

**kwargs example

def describe(**kwargs):
    for key, value in kwargs.items():
        print(f"{key}: {value}")

describe(name="Alex", age=30)
# name: Alex
# age: 30

You can use both in the same function definition (def func(*args, **kwargs)) to accept any combination of positional and keyword arguments — commonly seen in wrapper functions and decorators that need to pass arguments through to another function unchanged.

Last reviewed: September 2026

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