In order to user JSTL in project the pre mandatory thing to do is to include the following in web.xml file <web-app xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee web-app_2_4.xsd" version="2.4"> ... ... ... ...</web-app>