Warts are small, grainy skin growths with a rough texture, well-defined borders, and often a scattering of tiny black dots on the surface. Most are between 1 millimeter and 10 millimeters wide, roughly the size of a pencil eraser or smaller. But warts don’t all look the same. Their appearance depends on the type and where they grow on your body.
Common Warts on Hands and Fingers
Common warts are the type most people picture. They show up most often on the fingers and hands as small, firm bumps with a rough, grainy surface you can feel when you run a finger over them. They’re round or irregular in shape, typically 2 to 10 millimeters wide, and have sharp, well-defined edges where the wart meets normal skin.
The color ranges from skin-toned to grayish-brown, and the surface can look almost like a tiny cauliflower up close. One of the most recognizable features is a sprinkling of black dots across the surface. These aren’t seeds or dirt. They’re tiny blood vessels inside the wart that have clotted off. Not every wart has them, but when you spot those dots, it’s a strong visual clue you’re looking at a wart rather than something else.
Plantar Warts on the Feet
Plantar warts grow on the soles of your feet, and because you walk on them all day, they look different from warts elsewhere on the body. Instead of growing outward as a raised bump, the pressure from your body weight forces them inward. What you see on the surface is often a hard, thickened patch of skin, similar to a callus, with the wart buried underneath.
The giveaway is what happens to your skin lines. The normal ridges and lines on the bottom of your foot (like fingerprint lines) will interrupt or curve around a plantar wart instead of passing straight through it. A callus, by contrast, preserves those lines. Plantar warts also tend to display the same black dots seen in common warts, which helps distinguish them from corns. Corns form from pressure and friction, have a hard center core, and don’t contain those clotted blood vessels.
Flat Warts
Flat warts are the easiest to overlook because they’re so small. Each one is only 1 to 5 millimeters across, no bigger than the head of a pin. They sit nearly flush with the skin, with a smooth, slightly raised surface that lacks the rough, grainy texture of common warts. Their color can be yellowish-brown, pink, or match your skin tone.
What makes flat warts distinctive is their numbers. They almost always appear in clusters, sometimes 20 to 100 or more at a time. They favor the face, forehead, and backs of the hands, and in men they often show up in the beard area, likely spread by shaving. In women, they commonly appear on the legs for the same reason. If you notice a patch of many tiny, smooth, slightly raised bumps in one area, flat warts are a strong possibility.
Filiform Warts
Filiform warts look nothing like the other types. Instead of a rounded bump, they grow as thin, thread-like projections of skin, each about 1 to 2 millimeters long, that stick straight out from the surface. They tend to appear on the face, especially around the eyelids, lips, nose, and neck. Because of their narrow, spiky shape, they’re sometimes mistaken for skin tags, but skin tags are softer and more flexible, while filiform warts are firmer and have that characteristic finger-like projection.
Periungual Warts Around the Nails
Warts that grow around or under the fingernails and toenails are called periungual warts. They start as small, rough bumps near the nail edge and can gradually spread beneath the nail itself. Over time, they develop an irregular, bumpy surface that can look cauliflower-like. These warts can lift or distort the nail as they grow, making the nail appear uneven or ridged. People who bite their nails or pick at hangnails are more prone to them because broken skin gives the virus an easy entry point.
What a Wart Looks Like Early On
In its earliest stage, a wart may look like nothing more than a small, slightly shiny or smooth bump on the skin, sometimes as tiny as a pinhead. It hasn’t yet developed the rough, thickened surface that makes warts easy to identify. At this point, it can be confused with a pimple, a minor skin irritation, or a small mole. Over the following weeks, the surface gradually becomes rougher and more textured as the skin cells harden, and the black dots may start to appear. Common warts can take several weeks to months to reach their full size.
How to Tell a Wart From Something Else
Several skin growths can mimic warts, so knowing the differences matters.
- Corns and calluses form from repeated pressure and friction, not from a virus. A corn has a hard center core and tends to form on or between toes. Neither corns nor calluses have the black dots that warts do, and the natural skin lines on your foot pass through a callus but curve around a wart.
- Skin tags are soft, floppy bits of skin that hang from a thin stalk. Warts are firmer and more anchored to the skin surface.
- Moles are usually uniformly colored (brown or tan), smooth, and flat or slightly raised. They don’t have a rough, grainy surface.
There are also times when something that looks like a wart could be more concerning. Squamous cell carcinoma, a type of skin cancer, can appear as a flat, reddish or brownish patch with a rough, scaly, or crusted surface. It may itch, bleed, ooze, or feel tender. The key differences: skin cancers tend to change in size, shape, or color over time, and they can develop an open sore that doesn’t heal. A wart is generally stable once it reaches its full size and doesn’t bleed unless irritated. Any growth that changes rapidly, bleeds on its own, or looks different from one side to the other is worth having a professional evaluate.