- Use three to five relevant hashtags. TikTok was reported to cap posts at five in August 2025; 2026 sources disagree on whether the cap still applies, so five is the safe number.
- TikTok's Creator Academy is stricter still: two to three hashtags, chosen because they fit the video.
- Hashtags categorise a video. Keywords in your caption, on-screen text and speech are what TikTok search matches.
- Hashtag counts are lifetime totals; search counts are 7-day figures. #SkinCare had 988.9 billion lifetime views on 5 October 2026, while "Natural moisturizers for dry skin" had 361,563 searches in a week and no matched videos.
- Find the search phrase first, say it out loud, put it on screen and in the caption, then add the tags.
Use three to five hashtags on TikTok, each one describing what is in the video. TikTok's Creator Academy suggests two or three, and posts were reported capped at five in August 2025. Put the rest of your effort into keywords, because search matches words: "Natural moisturizers for dry skin" was searched 361,563 times in the week to 5 Oct and had no matched videos, while #SkinCare carries 61 million.
A hashtag is a category label with a lifetime count. A keyword is what someone typed this week. This page puts both sets of numbers side by side. Need tags now? Use the hashtag generator.
How many hashtags to use on TikTok
Use three to five. One broad tag for the category you are in, two that name your sub-niche, and up to two for the exact thing the video shows.
TikTok's own Creator Academy is stricter than most creators expect: less is more, it says, and two to three relevant hashtags per video, chosen because they fit rather than because they are big.
The cap does not change that guidance: Creator Academy still asks for two or three, and five is only the ceiling.
The five-hashtag cap
In early August 2025 creators started hitting a wall in the caption field. TikTok had capped hashtags at five per post and published no explanation for it. Fourteen months later the sources disagree. RecurPost, updated 29 September 2026, says TikTok counts only the first five; Sendcove, in April 2026, still lists 30. TikTok itself has not said which is current.
Some accounts reported seven rather than five during the rollout, so check your own caption field before you plan a set. Five relevant tags is safe either way.
What this kills is hashtag stuffing. What it does not change is which signal ranks you in search. That was never the hashtag.
What hashtags do, and what keywords do
They sit in the same caption and do two different jobs.
| Hashtags | Keywords | |
|---|---|---|
| Job | Tell TikTok which category the video belongs to | Match the words a person typed into the search bar |
| Where they live | Caption only; TikTok may count only the first five | Caption, on-screen text, spoken audio, and the video's automatic transcript |
| What they get you | A place on the hashtag's discovery page, and a nudge to the right For You audience | A position in search results for that query, which keeps paying out for months |
| What TikTok publishes | Lifetime views and lifetime video count for the tag | Search popularity: searches in the last 7 days, plus how many videos are matched to the topic |
| How many to use | Three to five, all relevant | One phrase, said and written and shown, in the first three seconds |
The right way to read that last row: you are not choosing between them. You are using the hashtag to tell TikTok what shelf to put the video on, and the keyword to win the search that sends people to that shelf. How TikTok search works covers the ranking side in more detail.
A hashtag's views and a keyword's searches are not the same number
Here is the comparison that settles most hashtag arguments. On the left, the broad hashtag for a niche. On the right, a typed search inside that niche, the words a person actually typed that same week.
| Niche | Hashtag | Lifetime views | Videos on the tag | Typed search | Searches, last 7 days | Videos matched |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Skincare | #SkinCare | 988.9B | 61,138,257 | Natural moisturizers for dry skin | 361,563 | 0 |
| Gym | #gym | 1.29T | 121,543,652 | gym workout sets | 238,980 | 1,070 |
| Books | #BookTok | 556.2B | 86,618,578 | BookRecommendation | 299,989 | 21,269 |
TikTok hashtag counts and TikTok's own search counts · week to 5 Oct
Find the search phrase for your niche
Look at the skincare row. #SkinCare has collected 988.9 billion views since the tag existed, spread over 61 million videos: about 16,175 views per video, most of them years ago, none of them yours. And the queue keeps growing: #SkinCare gained 1,123,999 videos in the 16 days to 5 October 2026.
The search column asks a different question: what are people looking for this week. "Natural moisturizers for dry skin" drew 361,563 searches in seven days and TikTok has matched no videos to it. That is a content gap: demand with nothing answering it. Adding #SkinCare doesn't find that gap. Searching the keywords does. Our content gap guide explains how TikTok decides a video counts as an answer.
One warning when you search: generic seeds mostly return TikTok's generated topic groups, names like "skincare routines and daily steps" whose figures pool many searches. All 20 results for "skincare routine" were groups. Seed with specific words (a product, an ingredient, a skin type) to reach typed searches, and compare only those. For how these counts sit next to Google's, see TikTok vs Google search.
Hashtag view and video counts are lifetime totals for the tag, with no time window at all. Search popularity is a 7-day global count of searches, and the video count next to it is how many videos TikTok has matched to that search. Detail in TikTok search volume, explained.
Find the keyword first. Ask TokConnect (the button fills in skincare as an example):
Find typed TikTok searches for [your niche] with 7-day searches and videos matched, and flag any with under 300 videos.
The rule set
This is what we do for every video, in order.
- Find the search phrase first. Search your niche in Creator Search Insights, or see the whole niche at once in TokConnect, and take the phrase with real weekly searches and a beatable video count. Keyword research, step by step.
- Say the phrase out loud in the first three seconds. TikTok transcribes audio. This is the highest-value step on the list, and it is free.
- Put the phrase in on-screen text. Not a stylised version of it. The words themselves.
- Write the caption as a sentence containing the phrase. "Natural moisturizers for dry skin that actually work" beats "my skin journey".
- Then add three to five hashtags. One broad (#SkinCare), two niche (#SkincareTips, #skincareproducts), up to two specific to the video. Stop.
- Never use a tag that does not fit. A wrong tag sends the video to people who swipe past, and that is the signal that buries it.
Which hashtags to pick once you have the keyword
Relevance first, then size, never the other way round. A tag with 989 billion views and no connection to your video is worth less than one like #skincaretutorial, with 830.4 million views on 27,011 videos, that describes it exactly.
TikTok uses hashtags to decide which audience to test the video on. A precise tag gets a small, interested test audience, the one most likely to watch to the end. A giant generic tag gets a broad one that mostly does not care.
For the numbers by niche, see the best TikTok hashtags by niche and the hashtag generator, with lifetime views and video counts for 40 niches. The trending hashtags page refreshes the same counts weekly.
One habit worth stealing: search your shortlisted tag inside TikTok before you post and check that the top videos on it look like yours. If they do not, the tag is lying about what it is.
How we got these numbers
On 5 October 2026 we pulled TikTok's search topics through TokConnect for "skincare routine", "moisturizer for dry skin", "gym workout" and "book recommendations" (20 topics each). Search figures are TikTok's Creator Search Insights search popularity: searches in the 7 days to 5 October 2026, global. 77 of the 80 results were TikTok's generated topic groups (records over 1 million whose week started under 5% of where it ended, or at 5 million or more), so we quote the three typed searches only. Hashtag figures come from TikTok's hashtag search the same day for each niche; views and video counts are lifetime totals for the tag, and "videos added" compares our 19 September and 5 October snapshots. The five-hashtag rule is from the dated reports linked above; TikTok has not published it. Data: search topics, hashtags.
Key statistics
"Natural moisturizers for dry skin" was searched 361,563 times on TikTok in the 7 days to 5 October 2026, worldwide, and TikTok matched 0 videos to it.
#SkinCare had 988.9 billion lifetime views across 61,138,257 videos on TikTok, about 16,175 views per video.
#BookTok gained 1,666,096 videos on TikTok between 19 September and 5 October 2026.
All 6 statistics
"BookRecommendation" was searched 299,989 times on TikTok in the 7 days to 5 October 2026, with 21,269 matched videos.
For the seeds "skincare routine", "gym workout", "book recommendations" and "moisturizer for dry skin", 77 of the 80 topics TikTok returned on 5 October 2026 were generated topic groups that pool many searches, not typed searches.
TikTok began capping posts at five hashtags in August 2025, Social Media Today reported; TikTok has not published the rule.
Frequently asked questions
What is the 5 hashtag rule on TikTok?
In August 2025 TikTok started capping posts at five hashtags, Social Media Today reported, without publishing an explanation. In 2026 the sources disagree: RecurPost (updated 29 September 2026) says TikTok counts only the first five, while Sendcove (April 2026) still lists 30. Five relevant tags is safe either way.
Do TikTok hashtags really work?
They work for categorisation, not for ranking in search. A hashtag tells TikTok which shelf the video belongs on; search matches the words in your caption, on-screen text and speech. A typed search such as "Natural moisturizers for dry skin" (361,563 searches in the week to 5 October 2026) is won with words, not tags.
What is the best hashtag strategy for TikTok?
Pick the search phrase first, then three to five hashtags: one broad tag for the category, two for the sub-niche, one or two for the exact thing in the video. Never add a tag that doesn't fit; a wrong audience swiping past is the signal that buries a video.
Is it better to use hashtags or keywords on TikTok?
Use both, for different jobs, and put more effort into keywords. A hashtag's count is lifetime: #SkinCare had 61,138,257 videos on 5 October 2026. A keyword's count is this week's demand, often with few videos answering it.
How many hashtags should I use on TikTok in 2026?
Three to five relevant ones. TikTok's Creator Academy suggests two or three, and a five-hashtag cap was reported in August 2025. More tags don't add reach: #BookTok alone gained 1,666,096 videos in the 16 days to 5 October 2026, so a broad tag is a crowded shelf.
Do hashtags help TikTok SEO?
A little. They tell TikTok what the video is about, but TikTok search matches the words you say, show and write. Put the search phrase in the first three seconds, on screen and in the caption; see our TikTok SEO guide.
Sources and data
- Elements of a TikTok video (TikTok Creator Academy)
- TikTok implements five hashtag limit per post (Social Media Today, August 2025)
- TikTok just rolled out a 5-hashtag limit (Planoly, 2025)
- TikTok character limits for captions, bios and usernames (RecurPost, updated 29 September 2026)
- TikTok character limits (Sendcove, April 2026)
- Creator Search Insights (TikTok Help Center)
- Search topics for skincare, gym and books, 5 October 2026 (snapshot)
- Hashtag snapshot, 5 October 2026
