Pandas version checks
Reproducible Example
import pandas as pd
from io import StringIO
result = pd.read_html(
StringIO("""
<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th></th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
<table id="descendant">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>A</th>
<th>B</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>1</td>
<td>2</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
"""),
flavor="bs4",
attrs={
"id": "descendant"
}
)[0]
print(result)Issue Description
A web page can have a nested table. For example, the outer table could be used for layout while the inner table contains actual data. (Granted, using tables for layout is discouraged but developers may still choose to do so.)
The example above prints the following:
Notice how the header row is incorrectly added as a regular row.
Expected Behavior
The example above should print the following:
Installed Versions
Details
INSTALLED VERSIONS
commit : 2d4966b
python : 3.11.15
python-bits : 64
OS : Darwin
OS-release : 24.6.0
Version : Darwin Kernel Version 24.6.0: Wed Nov 5 21:30:23 PST 2025; root:xnu-11417.140.69.705.2~1/RELEASE_X86_64
machine : x86_64
processor : i386
byteorder : little
LC_ALL : None
LANG : en_US.UTF-8
LOCALE : en_US.UTF-8
pandas : 3.1.0.dev0+278.g2d4966b114
numpy : 2.4.2
dateutil : 2.9.0.post0
pip : 26.0.1
Cython : 3.2.4
sphinx : 9.0.4
IPython : 9.10.0
adbc-driver-postgresql: None
adbc-driver-sqlite : None
bs4 : 4.14.3
bottleneck : 1.6.0
fastparquet : None
fsspec : 2026.2.0
html5lib : 1.1
hypothesis : 6.151.9
gcsfs : 2026.2.0
jinja2 : 3.1.6
lxml.etree : 6.0.2
matplotlib : 3.10.8
numba : 0.64.0
numexpr : 2.14.1
odfpy : None
openpyxl : 3.1.5
psycopg2 : 2.9.11
pymysql : 1.4.6
pyarrow : 23.0.1
pyiceberg : 0.11.1
pyreadstat : 1.3.3
pytest : 9.0.2
python-calamine : None
pytz : 2025.2
pyxlsb : 1.0.10
s3fs : 2026.2.0
scipy : 1.17.1
sqlalchemy : 2.0.48
tables : 3.11.1
tabulate : 0.10.0
xarray : None
xlrd : 2.0.2
xlsxwriter : 3.2.9
zstandard : 0.25.0
qtpy : None
pyqt5 : None
Pandas version checks
I have checked that this issue has not already been reported.
I have confirmed this bug exists on the latest version of pandas.
I have confirmed this bug exists on the main branch of pandas.
Reproducible Example
Issue Description
A web page can have a nested table. For example, the outer table could be used for layout while the inner table contains actual data. (Granted, using tables for layout is discouraged but developers may still choose to do so.)
The example above prints the following:
Notice how the header row is incorrectly added as a regular row.
Expected Behavior
The example above should print the following:
Installed Versions
Details
INSTALLED VERSIONS
commit : 2d4966b
python : 3.11.15
python-bits : 64
OS : Darwin
OS-release : 24.6.0
Version : Darwin Kernel Version 24.6.0: Wed Nov 5 21:30:23 PST 2025; root:xnu-11417.140.69.705.2~1/RELEASE_X86_64
machine : x86_64
processor : i386
byteorder : little
LC_ALL : None
LANG : en_US.UTF-8
LOCALE : en_US.UTF-8
pandas : 3.1.0.dev0+278.g2d4966b114
numpy : 2.4.2
dateutil : 2.9.0.post0
pip : 26.0.1
Cython : 3.2.4
sphinx : 9.0.4
IPython : 9.10.0
adbc-driver-postgresql: None
adbc-driver-sqlite : None
bs4 : 4.14.3
bottleneck : 1.6.0
fastparquet : None
fsspec : 2026.2.0
html5lib : 1.1
hypothesis : 6.151.9
gcsfs : 2026.2.0
jinja2 : 3.1.6
lxml.etree : 6.0.2
matplotlib : 3.10.8
numba : 0.64.0
numexpr : 2.14.1
odfpy : None
openpyxl : 3.1.5
psycopg2 : 2.9.11
pymysql : 1.4.6
pyarrow : 23.0.1
pyiceberg : 0.11.1
pyreadstat : 1.3.3
pytest : 9.0.2
python-calamine : None
pytz : 2025.2
pyxlsb : 1.0.10
s3fs : 2026.2.0
scipy : 1.17.1
sqlalchemy : 2.0.48
tables : 3.11.1
tabulate : 0.10.0
xarray : None
xlrd : 2.0.2
xlsxwriter : 3.2.9
zstandard : 0.25.0
qtpy : None
pyqt5 : None