Indent the text in a UITextField

This is the quickest way I've found without doing any subclasses:

UIView *spacerView = [[UIView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, 10, 10)];
[textfield setLeftViewMode:UITextFieldViewModeAlways];
[textfield setLeftView:spacerView];

In Swift:

let spacerView = UIView(frame:CGRect(x:0, y:0, width:10, height:10))
textField.leftViewMode = UITextFieldViewMode.Always
textField.leftView = spacerView

You have to subclass and override textRectForBounds: and editingRectForBounds:. Here is a UITextfield subclass with custom background and vertical and horizontal padding:

@interface MyUITextField : UITextField 
@property (nonatomic, assign) float verticalPadding;
@property (nonatomic, assign) float horizontalPadding;
@end

#import "MyUITextField.h"
@implementation MyUITextField
@synthesize horizontalPadding, verticalPadding;
- (CGRect)textRectForBounds:(CGRect)bounds {
    return CGRectMake(bounds.origin.x + horizontalPadding, bounds.origin.y + verticalPadding, bounds.size.width - horizontalPadding*2, bounds.size.height - verticalPadding*2);
}
- (CGRect)editingRectForBounds:(CGRect)bounds {
    return [self textRectForBounds:bounds];
}
@end

Usage:

UIImage *bg = [UIImage imageNamed:@"textfield.png"];
CGRect rect = CGRectMake(0, 0, bg.size.width, bg.size.height);
MyUITextField *textfield = [[[MyUITextField alloc] initWithFrame:rect] autorelease];
textfield.verticalPadding = 10; 
textfield.horizontalPadding = 10;
[textfield setBackground:bg];
[textfield setBorderStyle:UITextBorderStyleNone];
[self.view addSubview:textfield];

A good approach to add padding to UITextField is to subclass UITextField , overriding the rectangle methods and adding an edgeInsets property. You can then set the edgeInsets and the UITextField will be drawn accordingly. This will also function correctly with a custom leftView or rightView set.

OSTextField.h

#import <UIKit/UIKit.h>

@interface OSTextField : UITextField

@property (nonatomic, assign) UIEdgeInsets edgeInsets;

@end

OSTextField.m

#import "OSTextField.h"

@implementation OSTextField

- (id)initWithFrame:(CGRect)frame{
    self = [super initWithFrame:frame];
    if (self) {
        self.edgeInsets = UIEdgeInsetsMake(0, 0, 0, 0);
    }
    return self;
}

-(id)initWithCoder:(NSCoder *)aDecoder{
    self = [super initWithCoder:aDecoder];
    if(self){
        self.edgeInsets = UIEdgeInsetsMake(0, 0, 0, 0);
    }
    return self;
}

- (CGRect)textRectForBounds:(CGRect)bounds {
    return [super textRectForBounds:UIEdgeInsetsInsetRect(bounds, self.edgeInsets)];
}

- (CGRect)editingRectForBounds:(CGRect)bounds {
    return [super editingRectForBounds:UIEdgeInsetsInsetRect(bounds, self.edgeInsets)];
}

@end

I turned this into a nice little extension for use inside Storyboards:

public extension UITextField {
    @IBInspectable public var leftSpacer:CGFloat {
        get {
            return leftView?.frame.size.width ?? 0
        } set {
            leftViewMode = .Always
            leftView = UIView(frame: CGRect(x: 0, y: 0, width: newValue, height: frame.size.height))
        }
    }
}