Almost all of our bar stools are swivel bar stools. All this means is that our bar stool seat has a swivel between the seat and the frame. The seat is attached to the swivel and the swivel is attached to the frame. The swivel makes the bar stool more durable. When a person is sitting on a bar stool seat, they have a tendency to move around. Instead of pulling at the upholstery or at the screws that attach the seat to the stool, you have a turnplate absorbing the motion. When I was younger I thought the swivel was supposed to be very loose so that you can spin around on your seat. It turns out that is not the correct way for a swivel to work. You want it to be tight enough that it doesn't move without force but when you do need to turn the swivel or the seat, it doesn't take that much force. We offer a return swivel on many of our higher end bar stools that have backs. This allows the bar stool seat to face the same direction when someone isn't sitting on the seat. The return swivel is also pitched. It has a 3 degree pitch so that when you sit into the seat, you are sitting back into the seat on a slight angle. We have several bar stools without a swivel but most of our upholster furniture items have at least the option of a swivel seat.