The fingerboard (also known as a fretboard on fretted instruments) is a part of most stringed instruments. It is a thin, long strip of material, usually wood, that is laminated to the front of the neck of an instrument and above which the strings run. In the playing of such an instrument, a musician presses the strings down towards it in order to change their vibrating lengths, causing changes in pitch. This is called "stopping" the strings.

The word "fingerboard" in other languages sometimes occurs in musical directions. In Italian it is called either manico or tasto, the latter especially in the phrase sul tasto, a direction for bowed string instruments to play with the bow above the fingerboard.

A fingerboard may be fretted, having raised strips of hard material perpendicular to the strings against which the strings are stopped. Frets easily and consistently allow a musician to stop the string in the same place, and they allow for less damping of the vibrations than fingers alone. Frets may be fixed, as on a guitar or mandolin, or movable, as on a lute. Fingerboards may also be unfretted, as they usually are on bowed instruments, where damping is generally not a problem due to the prolonged stimulation of the strings. Unfretted fingerboards allow a musician more control over subtle changes in pitch than fretted boards, but are generally considered harder to master where intonation is concerned. Fingerboards may also be, though uncommon, a hybrid of these two. Such a construction is seen on the sitar, where arched frets attach at the edges of the fingerboard; unfretted strings run below the frets, while fretted ones run above. The frets are sufficiently high that pressing strings against the fingerboard is unnecessary for the frets to stop their vibrations so that the lower strings' sympathetic vibrations are uninterrupted.