TikTok video size and aspect ratio: every spec for 2026

The best TikTok video size is 1080 x 1920 pixels, a 9:16 aspect ratio, and TikTok's own ad specs still recommend 9:16 while accepting square and horizontal video. Export it as an MP4 with H.264 at 30 frames per second, inside the 23 to 60 fps range TikTok's developer docs allow, and it fills the whole screen with nothing cut off.

The rest is detail: where TikTok's buttons cover your video, what happens to square and horizontal clips, file size limits, and the sizes for photo posts, profile pictures, covers and ads. Where guides disagree, the tables show both numbers and say which comes from TikTok. We re-read TikTok's ad specs, developer docs, Help Center and Creator Academy on 5 October 2026.

Share or embed this infographic

Free to use on your site, in a deck or a newsletter with a credit link to TokConnect. Copy the code below.

<a href="https://tokconnect.com/guides/tiktok-video-size/"><img src="https://tokconnect.com/graphics/tiktok-video-size/summary.png" alt="TikTok video specs, checked 5 October 2026: 9:16 is the recommended shape, export 1080 x 1920; TikTok accepts 23 to 60 frames per second; developer uploads take files up to 4GB; non-Spark In-Feed ads take files up to 500MB" width="1200" height="630" style="max-width:100%;height:auto"></a><br>Source: <a href="https://tokconnect.com/guides/tiktok-video-size/">TikTok Video Size and Aspect Ratio: Every Spec for 2026</a> on TokConnect

Copy embed codeDownload PNG

TikTok video size and dimensions: every spec in one table

Here is every size in one place. Each row is explained further down the page.

How long should yours run? Check the top 20 videos for your topic (the link uses home workouts as the example).

Sources: TikTok In-Feed ad specs (June 2026); PostFast (September 2026); Renderforest (June 2026); Moda (August 2026); PostFast profile sizes (July 2026); Puritano (August 2026). All specs in one file: open the snapshot.

TikTok safe zones: where the buttons cover your video

A safe zone is the part of the frame that nothing covers. TikTok puts its own buttons and text on top of every video, so a caption burned in at the bottom or a logo in the corner can disappear behind them.

On a 1080 x 1920 video, keep text, faces and logos out of the top 130 pixels, the bottom 484 pixels, the right 140 pixels and the left 44 pixels. That leaves a box of 896 x 1306 pixels in the middle, a little over half the frame. The bottom is the big one: a quarter of the screen's height goes to your username, caption and sound name.

TikTok's own safe zones come as downloadable template files inside Ads Manager, listed on its In-Feed ad specs page (June 2026). TikTok's help pages do not print pixel numbers. Sources: Cadenus, EzUGC, Recharm, PostFast.

Cadenus and PostFast both say they measured TikTok's templates. TikTok says the zone changes with the video's shape and the caption's length, one reason the figures differ. Use the first row, which two guides agree on. For a caption of three or four lines, give the bottom more room, closer to PostFast's 660 pixels.

TikTok aspect ratio: how 9:16, 1:1 and 16:9 look

Aspect ratio is the shape of the video: width compared with height. TikTok's shape is 9:16, tall and narrow. It takes other shapes, but it does not stretch them to fill the screen. It shrinks them to fit the width and fills the gap with black.

Share of screen is our arithmetic: a 1080-wide square is 1,080 of 1,920 pixels tall; a 1080-wide 16:9 strip is 607.5 of 1,920. How each shape plays: Moda (August 2026), Riverside (December 2025).

Horizontal videos get a Full screen button under them. Tap it, turn the phone, and the video plays sideways at full size. TikTok's Full Screen Mode guide (updated 18 August 2026) adds a condition: the button appears only when the video is true landscape with no text in the margins, so a 16:9 clip with captions burned into black bars loses it. Most people scroll past without tapping, so in the feed a horizontal video is still a strip a third of the screen tall.

TikTok did push horizontal video for a while. In January 2024 it told some creators that horizontal videos over one minute would get extra views in their first 72 hours (Tubefilter, 30 January 2024). TikTok has not said whether that boost still runs in 2026. Post horizontal when the footage needs it, like a podcast, a game or a long talk. Don't post horizontal hoping for a push.

TikTok file size, format, resolution and frame rate

The file size limit depends on how you upload. TikTok does not publish a limit for phone uploads on any page we could reach, so the phone numbers come from guides, and they do not agree.

Sources: Puritano (30 August 2026), Riverside (14 December 2025), VidCrush (July 2026), Screensnap (July 2026), Renderforest (June 2026), PostFast (September 2026), TikTok's developer docs and ad specs.

The phone figures are the guides' own; TikTok's figures are the Studio guidance, the developer limit and the ad limit. If your file is over about 70 MB on Android, or about 280 MB on iPhone, upload it from a computer through TikTok Studio, which takes much bigger files.

Format. MP4 or MOV work everywhere. The desktop uploader also takes WebM, according to TikTok Studio's upload guidance as Renderforest quotes it. Use the H.264 video codec and AAC audio, the most common settings in any editor.

Resolution. Aim for 1080 x 1920. TikTok Studio asks for at least 720 x 1280. Anything smaller plays, but it looks blurry on a modern phone. TikTok re-encodes every upload on its side (VidCrush), so a file bigger than 1080 x 1920 mostly costs you upload time.

Frame rate. TikTok's developer docs accept 23 to 60 frames per second. Use 30 for most videos and 60 for fast sport or gaming footage. Keep the frame rate you filmed at, because converting 24 to 30 can make movement stutter.

How long can a TikTok upload be?

You can record up to 10 minutes in the TikTok app and upload up to 60 minutes, though TikTok has not said the 60-minute limit reaches every account. Renderforest quotes TikTok Studio's upload guidance as 30 minutes, and TikTok's own developer docs say all creators can post 3-minute videos while some have 5- or 10-minute access, so the limit your upload screen shows can differ. Our guide on how long a TikTok should be covers the limits and what length ranks.

In practice nobody near the top of search uses the full hour. When we checked 100 videos that rank for ten everyday searches on 22 September 2026, the longest was 5 minutes 18 seconds. In the 84 relevance-ranked results, the median was 41.3 seconds and only 4 ran over 3 minutes (snapshot).

Photo mode, profile picture and cover image sizes

Photo mode. A photo post, the slideshow format, takes up to 35 photos (TikTok Help Center; TikTok Newsroom). Make each image 1080 x 1920 so it fills the screen. JPG and PNG are safe; TikTok's developer docs list WebP and JPEG for apps that post for you, up to 1080p and 20 MB per image. Our slideshow guide covers how many images ranking posts use.

Profile picture. Upload a square image of 720 x 720. TikTok shows it as a circle at about 200 x 200, and the minimum it accepts is 20 x 20 (PostFast, July 2026). The circle cuts off the corners, so keep your face or logo in the middle. You change it under Edit profile (TikTok Help Center).

Cover image. The cover is the still frame people see on your profile grid. Make it 1080 x 1920, either a frame from the video or an image you upload when you post. Your profile grid trims the top and bottom: Moda puts the crop at about 3:4, Screensnap at 1:1.6. Either way, keep cover text in the middle third of the height.

TikTok ad specs for In-Feed ads

In-Feed ads are the ads that appear between videos in the For You feed. TikTok publishes these specs itself, on its auction In-Feed ads page (updated June 2026), so this is the one section where no guide has to fill a gap.

Sources: TikTok auction In-Feed ad specs and TopView specs (both June 2026); Influencer Marketing Hub (7 July 2026).

The 540 x 960 minimum is a floor, not a target: export ads at 1080 x 1920. With no caption limit on TikTok's In-Feed page, stay under 100 characters.

Spark Ads are different: you boost a video that is already posted, so the ad keeps that video's size, length and caption. TikTok sets no length limit for them. Our Spark Ads guide explains when that is the better choice.

Export presets for CapCut and Premiere Pro

Set the shape before you edit, not at the end. Changing a finished 16:9 edit to 9:16 moves every caption and cut.

CapCut

Set the project ratio to 9:16; the setting is labelled Ratio or Aspect ratio. When you export, pick 1080p, 30 frames per second (60 for fast footage), MP4 and H.264. For bit rate, choose a setting above the default if you can; guides suggest about 8 to 12 Mbps at 1080p (Puritano). CapCut moves these menus between versions, so look for the words, not the exact spot.

Premiere Pro

Make a sequence of 1080 x 1920 at your footage's frame rate. For an edit already cut in 16:9, Sequence > Auto Reframe Sequence with the target set to Vertical 9:16 builds a vertical copy that follows the subject. To export, open the Export tab (or File > Export > Media), choose H.264, start from the "Match Source - Adaptive High Bitrate" preset, and check the frame size reads 1080 x 1920 (Wes Jones).

Before you export, turn on a safe-zone overlay if your editor has one, or draw guide boxes 130 px from the top, 484 px from the bottom, 140 px from the right and 44 px from the left. Then check each caption against them. New to posting? How to use TikTok covers the rest of the upload screen.

The length of your export is the other decision, and it depends on your topic. TokConnect can check what the top videos for your topic run to before you cut, in its research agent or inside ChatGPT and Claude.

Search TikTok for [your topic] and tell me how long the top 20 videos are, with the median, so I know how long to cut my export.

You get a list of the top videos with each one's length, views and saves, and the middle length across all 20. Cut your edit to that length, export at 1080 x 1920, and check the captions against the safe zone before you post.

How we got these numbers

TikTok publishes video specs in three places, and we read each in full: the In-Feed ad specs in its Ads Help Center (last updated June 2026), the Content Posting API guide for apps that post on your behalf, and the Help Center and Creator Academy pages on photo posts, Series uploads and Full screen mode. TikTok does not publish a file size limit for phone uploads or pixel-exact safe zones on any page we could read, so those rows come from the dated 2026 guides named in each table. Everything is in two snapshots: TikTok's own specs and the guides' figures.

The length numbers come from TokConnect, which reads TikTok's own data: we pulled the top results for ten everyday searches in two sort orders, 100 unique videos with their durations (snapshot). We also checked TikTok's search demand for the topic on 5 October 2026: both searches, "tiktok video size" and "high quality tiktok", returned only TikTok's topic groups, generated phrases that pool many related searches, so we quote no search count for video size.