This page shows the electron configurations of the neutral gaseous atoms in their ground states. For each atom the subshells are given first in concise form, then with all subshells written out, followed by the number of electrons per shell. For phosphorus (element 15) as an example, the concise form is 3s² 3p³. Here refers to the core electrons which are the same as for the element neon (Ne), the last noble gas before phosphorus in the periodic table. The valence electrons (here 3s² 3p³) are written explicitly for all atoms.

Electron configurations of elements beyond hassium (element 108) have never been measured; predictions are used below.

As an approximate rule, electron configurations are given by the Aufbau principle and the Madelung rule. However there are numerous exceptions; for example the lightest exception is chromium, which would be predicted to have the configuration 1s² 2s² 2p⁶ 3s² 3p⁶ 3d⁴ 4s², written as 3d⁴ 4s², but whose actual configuration given in the table below is 3d⁵ 4s¹.

Note that these electron configurations are given for neutral atoms in the gas phase, which are not the same as the electron configurations for the same atoms in chemical environments. In many cases, multiple configurations are within a small range of energies and the irregularities shown below do not necessarily have a clear relation to chemical behaviour.^[1] For the undiscovered eighth-row elements, mixing of configurations is expected to be very important, and sometimes the result can no longer be well-described by a single configuration.^[2]