 <p>I think the basic recipe to do this without tabindex (why do you want to do this btw?) would be something like:</p> <pre><code>$(document).on('keypress',function(e) { var keyCode = e.keyCode || e.which; if (keyCode == 9) { //if the key pressed was 'tab'... e.preventDefault(); //put code here to focus on the next tab, //probably using http://api.jquery.com/focus/ .focus() //remember to select the very first tab when you reach the last tab! } }); </code></pre> <p>with thanks to this answer: <a href="http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1314450/jquery-how-to-capture-the-tab-keypress-within-a-textbox">jQuery: How to capture the TAB keypress within a Textbox</a></p>