UITableView - change section header color

Hopefully this method from the UITableViewDelegate protocol will get you started:

Objective-C:

- (UIView *) tableView:(UITableView *)tableView viewForHeaderInSection:(NSInteger)section 
{
  UIView *headerView = [[[UIView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, tableView.bounds.size.width, 30)] autorelease];
  if (section == integerRepresentingYourSectionOfInterest)
     [headerView setBackgroundColor:[UIColor redColor]];
  else 
     [headerView setBackgroundColor:[UIColor clearColor]];
  return headerView;
}

Swift:

func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView!, viewForHeaderInSection section: Int) -> UIView!
{
  let headerView = UIView(frame: CGRect(x: 0, y: 0, width: tableView.bounds.size.width, height: 30))
  if (section == integerRepresentingYourSectionOfInterest) {
    headerView.backgroundColor = UIColor.redColor()
  } else {
    headerView.backgroundColor = UIColor.clearColor()
  }
  return headerView
}

Updated 2017:

Swift 3:

func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, viewForHeaderInSection section: Int) -> UIView?
    {
        let headerView = UIView(frame: CGRect(x: 0, y: 0, width: tableView.bounds.size.width, height: 30))
        if (section == integerRepresentingYourSectionOfInterest) {
            headerView.backgroundColor = UIColor.red
        } else {
            headerView.backgroundColor = UIColor.clear
        }
        return headerView
    }

Replace [UIColor redColor] with whichever UIColor you would like. You may also wish to adjust the dimensions of headerView.

Here's how to change the text color.

UILabel *label = [[[UILabel alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(10, 3, tableView.bounds.size.width - 10, 18)] autorelease];
label.text = @"Section Header Text Here";
label.textColor = [UIColor colorWithRed:1.0 green:1.0 blue:1.0 alpha:0.75];
label.backgroundColor = [UIColor clearColor];
[headerView addSubview:label];

For swift 5 +

In willDisplayHeaderView Method

func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, willDisplayHeaderView view: UIView, forSection section: Int) {

     //For Header Background Color
     view.tintColor = .black

    // For Header Text Color
    let header = view as! UITableViewHeaderFooterView
    header.textLabel?.textColor = .white
}

I hope this helps you :]

Swift 4

To change the background color, text label color and font for the Header View of a UITableView Section, simply override willDisplayHeaderView for your table view like so:

override func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, willDisplayHeaderView view: UIView, forSection section: Int) {
        let header = view as! UITableViewHeaderFooterView
        header.backgroundView?.backgroundColor = .white
        header.textLabel?.textColor = .black
        header.textLabel?.font = UIFont(name: "Helvetica-Bold", size: 14)
} 

This worked perfectly for me; hope it does help you too!

Swift 4 makes it very easy. Simply add this to your class and set the color as needed.

override func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, willDisplayHeaderView view: UIView, forSection section: Int) {
        view.backgroundColor = UIColor(red: 0.094, green: 0.239, blue: 0.424, alpha: 1.0)
    }

or if a simple color

override func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, willDisplayHeaderView view: UIView, forSection section: Int) {
        view.backgroundColor = UIColor.white
    }

Updated for Swift 5

override func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, willDisplayHeaderView view: UIView, forSection section: Int) {
        view.tintColor = UIColor(red: 0.094, green: 0.239, blue: 0.424, alpha: 1.0)
    }

or if a simple color

override func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, willDisplayHeaderView view: UIView, forSection section: Int) {
        view.tintColor = UIColor.white
    }

For me none of above works after wasting 2 hours what this is the solution. In my case it was custom view but I cannot able to change it from storyboard and view's awakeFromNib for some reason.

override func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, willDisplayHeaderView view: UIView, forSection section: Int) {
        let header = view as! UITableViewHeaderFooterView
        header.contentView.backgroundColor = .white
    }

I got message from Xcode through console log

[TableView] Setting the background color on UITableViewHeaderFooterView has been deprecated. Please set a custom UIView with your desired background color to the backgroundView property instead.

Then I just create a new UIView and lay it as background of HeaderView. Not a good solution but it easy as Xcode said.

In my case, It worked like this:

let headerIdentifier = "HeaderIdentifier"
let header = self.tableView.dequeueReusableHeaderFooterView(withIdentifier: headerIdentifier)
header.contentView.backgroundColor = UIColor.white

Just set the background color of the background view:

func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, willDisplayHeaderView view: UIView, forSection section: Int){         
  let tableHeader = view as! UITableViewHeaderFooterView        
  tableHeader.backgroundView?.backgroundColor = UIColor.white     
}

If you are using a custom header view:

class YourCustomHeaderFooterView: UITableViewHeaderFooterView { 

override func awakeFromNib() {
    super.awakeFromNib()
    self.contentView.backgroundColor = .white //Or any color you want
}

}

Although func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, willDisplayHeaderView view: UIView, forSection section: Int) will work as well, you can acheive this without implementing another delegate method. in you func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, viewForHeaderInSection section: Int) -> UIView? method, you can use view.contentView.backgroundColor = UIColor.white instead of view.backgroundView?.backgroundColor = UIColor.white which is not working. (I know that backgroundView is optional, but even when it is there, this is not woking without implementing willDisplayHeaderView

Using UIAppearance you can change it for all headers in your application like this:

UITableViewHeaderFooterView.appearance().backgroundColor = theme.subViewBackgroundColor

iOS 13> swift 5

func tableView(_ tableView: UITableView, willDisplayHeaderView view: UIView, forSection section: Int) {view.tintColor = UIColor.red }