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- 18 to 24 year olds are the default audience on TikTok search: the median everyday search had 52.6% of its age-known searchers in that group.
- Beauty, food, books and travel searches skew youngest, with category medians between 56% and 59% aged 18 to 24.
- Self-help and faith searches skew oldest: median 26.9% aged 18 to 24 and 27.0% aged 35+.
- Dance is where the under-18s are: a third of the age-known people searching "Line dances" were under 18.
- Read the shares with care: TikTok puts a median 28.5% of each panel in an "others" group with no age.
What does Gen Z search on TikTok? Mostly beauty, food, books and travel: across 47 everyday typed searches in the 30 days to 5 October 2026, a median 52.6% of the searchers TikTok placed in an age group were 18 to 24, and beauty and fashion searches ran highest at 58.7%. Faith, health supplements, home and money searches skew older.
The youngest large search was "make up forever palette", at 73.3% aged 18 to 24. Self-help and faith searches sat at the other end, with a median of 26.9%. Dance searches drew the most teenagers: about a third of the age-known people searching "Line dances" were under 18. These are shares of each search's audience as TikTok reports it, not a survey of Gen Z.
Key statistics
Free to quote and share with a link to this page. Each figure comes from the data listed under Sources and data.
Across 47 everyday typed TikTok searches in the 30 days to 5 October 2026, the median share of searchers aged 18 to 24, among those TikTok placed in an age group, was 52.6%.
18 to 24 year olds made up more than half of the age-known searchers for 25 of 47 everyday TikTok searches, and were the largest age group for 37 of 47, in the 30 days to 5 October 2026.
73.3% of the age-known people who searched "make up forever palette" on TikTok in the 30 days to 5 October 2026 were aged 18 to 24, the highest share among the 25 searches with a large audience sample.
Among 47 everyday TikTok searches in the 30 days to 5 October 2026, beauty and fashion searches had a median 18 to 24 share of 58.7%, against 26.9% for self-help and faith searches.
34.0% of the age-known people searching "Line dances" on TikTok in the 30 days to 5 October 2026 were under 18, including 25.9% aged 16 to 17.
TikTok's audience panels put a median 28.5% of each search's searchers in an "others" age group with no age bracket, across 48 everyday searches in the 30 days to 5 October 2026.
What these age shares are
Creator Search Insights, TikTok's search tool in the app and at tiktok.com/csi, shows an audience panel for each search: the people who ran that search in the chosen window, split by age, gender and country. We pulled the 30-day panel for each search on 5 October 2026. Our TikTok audience insights guide explains where the panel sits next to TikTok's other audience tools.
TikTok reports six age groups: 4–15, 16–17, 18–24, 25–34, 35+ and "others". Each is a count, and they add up to the panel total. "others" is the part of the audience TikTok does not put in an age bracket; TikTok does not say why. Its size swings from 5.0% to 50.9% of a panel, so we leave it out and report each age as a share of the searchers with a known age. That is the share you see throughout this page. The table also lists the "others" share for every search, so you can see what was left out. With "others" kept in, the median 18 to 24 share drops from 52.6% to 36.5%.
A note on "Gen Z". Pew Research Center counts everyone born from 1997 onward as Gen Z, so in 2026 Gen Z runs from teenagers to people aged 29. TikTok's 18 to 24 group is the core of that, but 25 to 29 year olds sit in the 25–34 group. We say "18 to 24" when we mean the bucket, and "Gen Z" only for the general picture.
The 4–15 group is TikTok's own label, and we report it as given. For context on how many teenagers use the app, Pew found 68% of US teens aged 13 to 17 use TikTok.
What Gen Z searches on TikTok: the youngest-skewing searches
The searches with the biggest 18 to 24 share are about looking good, going out, reading and new viral things. "nurse amazon must haves" (75.3%) and "miami club dress code" (74.1%) top the list, but both have small panels, so treat them as signs rather than results. Among searches with a large panel, the youngest were "make up forever palette" (73.3%), "kindle girl" (67.8%), "tarpon springs" (61.7%), "rice harvesting" (61.6%) and "super push up" (60.3%).
The young skew is not only a US thing. The biggest country for "make up forever palette" was Türkiye, with 15.9% of the panel, and for "kindle girl" it was Brazil (26.4%). For "tarpon springs", a Florida town, 68.5% of searchers were in the US and 61.7% of the age-known ones were 18 to 24.
The searches that skew older
At the other end are searches where people aged 35 and over make up a big share. "my scripture for today" had the oldest panel: 46.6% aged 35+ and just 14.7% aged 18 to 24, though its panel is small. Among searches with a large panel, "best magnesium for women" was the oldest, at 29.4% aged 35+ and 28.4% aged 18 to 24.
Two other searches show where the 25 to 34 group takes over. "ways to show love and appreciation" had 49.9% aged 25 to 34, and "oled nintendo switch" 42.9%. "accounting for beginners" split almost evenly between 18 to 24 (40.9%) and 25 to 34 (38.2%).
The pattern makes sense: faith, health supplements, hosting, home and small business are what people search when they run a household or a business. Even so, 18 to 24 year olds were at least 24% of the age-known searchers for every search except "my scripture for today".
Category patterns
Beauty and fashion, food and drink, books, and travel skew youngest, each with a median 18 to 24 share above 56%. Home, money and self-help skew oldest.
| Category | Searches | Median 18–24 | Median under 18 | Median 25–34 | Median 35+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Beauty & fashion | 5 | 58.7% | 10.5% | 17.7% | 6.5% |
| Food & drink | 5 | 58.0% | 14.9% | 21.7% | 7.4% |
| Books & reading | 4 | 56.4% | 8.4% | 25.4% | 5.0% |
| Travel | 5 | 56.4% | 12.2% | 18.4% | 7.6% |
| Tech & apps | 5 | 54.0% | 5.8% | 25.1% | 13.0% |
| Health & fitness | 5 | 52.6% | 10.1% | 30.8% | 7.4% |
| Dance & music | 3 | 50.7% | 34.0% | 13.2% | 6.4% |
| Home | 5 | 41.2% | 6.1% | 37.0% | 17.0% |
| Money, work & study | 5 | 37.9% | 6.6% | 29.7% | 15.1% |
| Self-help & faith | 5 | 26.9% | 3.5% | 32.6% | 27.0% |
Medians across each category's searches, shares of searchers with a known age. Medians in each column are taken separately, so a row need not add up to 100%. Data: TikTok Creator Search Insights via TokConnect, 30 days to 5 October 2026. Download the data.
With 3 to 5 searches per category, the middle rows are close and could swap with a different sample. The gap between the ends, about 59% against 27%, is the finding to trust.
Where the under-18s are
Dance is the one category where teenagers show up in force. A median of 34.0% of dance searchers were under 18, against 9.6% across all 47 searches. "new easy dances" had 37.7% under 18 (small sample), and "Line dances", with a panel of 1,549,452, had 34.0%, of which 25.9% were 16 or 17.
"gtech pen" is the odd one: 30.0% under 18, most of it in the 4–15 group (19.2%), and 94.8% of its panel was in the Philippines. It also had the largest "others" share in the study, 50.9%, so read it with care.
Full results: all 48 searches
Sorted by 18 to 24 share. Age shares are of searchers with a known age; "others" is shown as a share of the whole panel. "Small" means a panel under 50,000.
| # | Search | Category | 18–24 | 16–17 | 4–15 | 25–34 | 35+ | "others" (of all) | Panel size | Sample |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | nurse amazon must haves | Money, work & study | 75.3% | 6.3% | 0.3% | 16.4% | 1.7% | 8.9% | 31,481 | small |
| 2 | miami club dress code | Beauty & fashion | 74.1% | 10.0% | 0.4% | 12.6% | 2.9% | 20.6% | 30,101 | small |
| 3 | make up forever palette | Beauty & fashion | 73.3% | 4.1% | 1.3% | 17.7% | 3.6% | 21.3% | 684,829 | ok |
| 4 | kindle girl | Books & reading | 67.8% | 3.1% | 2.4% | 24.5% | 2.4% | 16.3% | 50,813 | ok |
| 5 | oklahoma city from above | Travel | 65.2% | 11.8% | 2.0% | 17.7% | 3.3% | 23.1% | 4,736,274 | ok |
| 6 | lock in gym motivation | Health & fitness | 63.8% | 8.2% | 2.2% | 22.4% | 3.4% | 31.2% | 33,708 | small |
| 7 | booktok ideas | Books & reading | 63.0% | 3.8% | 4.1% | 26.4% | 2.6% | 30.3% | 37,978 | small |
| 8 | tarpon springs | Travel | 61.7% | 8.6% | 3.7% | 18.4% | 7.6% | 35.1% | 1,399,598 | ok |
| 9 | rice harvesting | Food & drink | 61.6% | 4.2% | 2.4% | 24.3% | 7.4% | 30.0% | 844,175 | ok |
| 10 | best kpop dances | Dance & music | 61.1% | 10.0% | 3.2% | 19.3% | 6.4% | 28.2% | 43,309 | small |
| 11 | super push up | Health & fitness | 60.3% | 14.0% | 0.8% | 17.4% | 7.4% | 32.6% | 176,109 | ok |
| 12 | best dash cams | Tech & apps | 59.8% | 8.9% | 2.4% | 16.0% | 13.0% | 30.5% | 24,284 | small |
| 13 | brown blush | Beauty & fashion | 58.7% | 9.0% | 4.7% | 21.1% | 6.5% | 37.1% | 870,858 | ok |
| 14 | fall coffee | Food & drink | 58.6% | 12.4% | 2.5% | 19.1% | 7.4% | 17.5% | 150,612 | ok |
| 15 | cinnamon gum | Food & drink | 58.0% | 8.6% | 5.1% | 16.7% | 11.5% | 30.8% | 157,343 | ok |
| 16 | movie night villa usa | Travel | 56.4% | 20.5% | 7.1% | 11.4% | 4.6% | 26.4% | 94,225 | ok |
| 17 | usa nature | Travel | 55.2% | 3.5% | 2.2% | 27.9% | 11.2% | 42.7% | 88,924 | ok |
| 18 | ramen brick | Food & drink | 55.0% | 12.0% | 4.0% | 21.7% | 7.2% | 29.1% | 35,102 | small |
| 19 | what is a kindle | Tech & apps | 54.3% | 6.4% | 4.1% | 25.1% | 10.0% | 28.8% | 142,525 | ok |
| 20 | temu discount code | Tech & apps | 54.0% | 1.4% | 3.8% | 30.1% | 10.7% | 37.8% | 88,753 | ok |
| 21 | in ohio | Travel | 53.9% | 3.0% | 3.9% | 28.0% | 11.2% | 37.1% | 36,886 | small |
| 22 | country fit | Beauty & fashion | 53.7% | 17.0% | 5.2% | 16.0% | 8.1% | 31.9% | 101,766 | ok |
| 23 | butter nails | Beauty & fashion | 53.3% | 6.2% | 3.3% | 27.6% | 9.6% | 27.9% | 75,505 | ok |
| 24 | sea moss before and after | Health & fitness | 52.6% | 8.0% | 2.1% | 30.8% | 6.5% | 12.6% | 138,629 | ok |
| 25 | Line dances | Dance & music | 50.7% | 25.9% | 8.1% | 10.8% | 4.5% | 23.4% | 1,549,452 | ok |
| 26 | a storm of swords | Books & reading | 49.7% | 4.2% | 4.6% | 34.0% | 7.5% | 30.5% | 44,003 | small |
| 27 | booktok pages | Books & reading | 47.3% | 20.1% | 7.7% | 13.6% | 11.2% | 35.2% | 26,100 | small |
| 28 | fun easy recipes | Food & drink | 46.7% | 15.3% | 0.7% | 27.7% | 9.5% | 15.4% | 16,192 | small |
| 29 | best toilet cleaner | Home | 45.3% | 0.0% | 1.6% | 43.8% | 9.4% | 27.8% | 26,595 | small |
| 30 | prayer quotes motivation | Self-help & faith | 43.1% | 0.0% | 0.5% | 37.3% | 19.1% | 29.7% | 90,988 | ok |
| 31 | amazon desk must haves | Home | 41.5% | 0.4% | 1.5% | 36.3% | 20.4% | 9.1% | 29,701 | small |
| 32 | magic com mini | Home | 41.2% | 3.9% | 2.2% | 37.0% | 15.7% | 33.5% | 2,480,544 | ok |
| 33 | accounting for beginners | Money, work & study | 40.9% | 4.3% | 1.5% | 38.2% | 15.1% | 17.3% | 133,883 | ok |
| 34 | cheap bedding sets | Home | 39.3% | 11.8% | 1.4% | 27.5% | 19.9% | 24.4% | 27,894 | small |
| 35 | gtech pen | Money, work & study | 37.9% | 10.8% | 19.2% | 20.9% | 11.2% | 50.9% | 851,471 | ok |
| 36 | oled nintendo switch | Tech & apps | 37.6% | 2.2% | 3.7% | 42.9% | 13.6% | 36.3% | 612,314 | ok |
| 37 | side hustle online | Money, work & study | 36.3% | 4.2% | 7.8% | 29.7% | 21.9% | 40.1% | 169,480 | ok |
| 38 | amazon hosting must haves | Tech & apps | 35.8% | 0.0% | 0.5% | 25.1% | 38.7% | 5.0% | 21,787 | small |
| 39 | new easy dances | Dance & music | 34.9% | 26.4% | 11.3% | 13.2% | 14.2% | 35.0% | 16,290 | small |
| 40 | take time for yourself | Self-help & faith | 34.5% | 4.4% | 4.4% | 29.6% | 27.0% | 26.9% | 30,887 | small |
| 41 | two sided mirror | Home | 29.3% | 9.0% | 2.1% | 42.6% | 17.0% | 29.3% | 26,600 | small |
| 42 | best magnesium for women | Health & fitness | 28.4% | 2.8% | 0.6% | 38.8% | 29.4% | 10.8% | 103,445 | ok |
| 43 | ways to show love and appreciation | Self-help & faith | 26.9% | 1.3% | 2.1% | 49.9% | 19.7% | 26.6% | 71,805 | ok |
| 44 | trust in god motivation | Self-help & faith | 25.6% | 1.2% | 2.3% | 32.6% | 38.4% | 31.2% | 12,493 | small |
| 45 | small business marketing | Money, work & study | 25.5% | 1.4% | 0.5% | 46.4% | 26.4% | 23.6% | 28,782 | small |
| 46 | herbal healing | Health & fitness | 24.7% | 0.5% | 0.0% | 43.2% | 31.6% | 21.5% | 24,200 | small |
| 47 | my scripture for today | Self-help & faith | 14.7% | 4.6% | 1.7% | 32.4% | 46.6% | 15.3% | 28,093 | small |
| – | Best romantasy | Books & reading | 59.0% | 6.5% | 0.0% | 27.9% | 6.5% | 19.7% | 7,594 | left out (under 10,000) |
Data: TikTok Creator Search Insights via TokConnect, audience_demographics, 30 days to 5 October 2026, global. Panel size is TikTok's own count for the window and is not on the same scale as search popularity. Checked 5 October 2026. Download the data.
What this means if you make videos for Gen Z
A young audience is the default on TikTok search. Pew found 63% of US adults under 30 use TikTok, against 30% of those aged 50 to 64, and our median search was majority 18 to 24. So the useful question is not "is this young?" but "how young, compared with similar searches?".
- Beauty, food, books and travel spots: speak to 18 to 24 year olds first. Their median shares ran from 56.4% to 58.7%.
- Home, money and faith: expect a mixed audience where 25 to 34 year olds are as big as, or bigger than, 18 to 24s.
- Dance: plan for teenagers, and follow TikTok's rules for content aimed at younger users.
Adobe's 2026 survey found 25% of Gen Z consumers found TikTok effective for finding information, more than any older generation, and Pew found 21% of US teens say they are on TikTok almost constantly. For how fast these same searches moved over the summer, see our Q3 2026 TikTok search report, and for more survey numbers, TikTok search statistics.
An agent can pull the same age split for the searches in your niche.
Using TokConnect, search TikTok topics for [your niche] and keep only typed searches people actually type (skip TikTok's broad topic labels that pool many searches). For the top 10, pull the 30-day audience demographics. For each, give me the share aged 16 to 17, 18 to 24, 25 to 34 and 35+ out of the searchers with a known age, the "others" share of the whole panel, and the panel size. Flag any panel under 50,000 and rank the searches from youngest to oldest.
Free to start, 50 credits, no card. Or paste it into ChatGPT, Claude or Cursor once you connect TokConnect.
How we got these numbers
Design first. On 5 October 2026, before any audience call, we saved the topic list, the metric definitions, the small-sample rule and the analysis plan in the dataset under studyDesign.
Sample. The same typed searches as our Q3 search report, drawn from our daily archive of TikTok topic results (26 September to 5 October 2026) by a fixed rule: the first 5 in each of 10 categories, ranked by how often they appeared in the archive. Dance and music had only 3, so the study has 48. TikTok's topic labels, names, news and run-together hashtags were excluded before any pull.
Pull. One TokConnect audience_demographics call per search, 30 days, global, sequential, on 5 October 2026: 48 calls, no errors. We make TokConnect; the numbers are TikTok's.
Metrics. Each age share is that group's count divided by the panel total minus "others". Panels under 50,000 are marked small (23 of 48), and panels under 10,000 are left out of rankings and medians (1: "Best romantasy", 7,594). No search had an "others" share above 60%, the other exclusion rule.
Limits. These are shares of one search's audience in one 30-day window, worldwide. They say nothing about how many Gen Z people use TikTok, and a search can be young because of where it is popular. TikTok does not publish how it assigns ages, and the "others" group is large and undefined. Panel counts are not on the same scale as search popularity, so we only use them for shares.
Download the data (design, every share and panel). Raw panels: all 48 audience pulls. Free to reuse with a link to this page.
Frequently asked questions
What does Gen Z search for on TikTok?
In TikTok's own audience data for 47 everyday searches (30 days to 5 October 2026), the searches with the biggest 18 to 24 share were about beauty, going out, books and viral moments: "make up forever palette" (73.3%), "kindle girl" (67.8%), "tarpon springs" (61.7%) and "rice harvesting" (61.6%). Beauty and fashion had the highest category median, 58.7%.
Does Gen Z use TikTok as a search engine?
Many do. Adobe's 2026 survey found 25% of Gen Z consumers found TikTok effective for finding information, more than any older generation, though most still preferred Google. In our data, 18 to 24 year olds were the largest age group for 37 of 47 everyday searches.
What age group searches the most on TikTok?
For everyday searches, 18 to 24. Across 47 searches in the 30 days to 5 October 2026, the median share was 52.6% aged 18 to 24, 26.4% aged 25 to 34, 10.7% aged 35+ and 9.6% under 18, counting only searchers TikTok placed in an age group.
What do older people search on TikTok?
Faith, health supplements, home and small business. "my scripture for today" had 46.6% of its age-known searchers aged 35+, and "best magnesium for women" 29.4%. The self-help and faith category had a median 35+ share of 27.0%, against 6.5% for beauty and fashion.
How can I see the age of people searching a topic on TikTok?
Open Creator Search Insights in the TikTok app or at tiktok.com/csi, open a topic and look at its audience panel for age, gender and country. It shows one topic at a time and has no export. Our audience insights guide explains the panel next to TikTok's other audience tools.
How many teenagers use TikTok?
Pew Research Center found 68% of US teens aged 13 to 17 use TikTok, and 21% say they are on it almost constantly (survey of September to October 2025). In our search data, under-18s were a median 9.6% of age-known searchers, but 34.0% for dance searches.
Sources and data
- 8 facts about Americans and TikTok (Pew Research Center, March 2026)
- Teens, Social Media and AI Chatbots 2025 (Pew Research Center, December 2025)
- Where Millennials end and Generation Z begins (Pew Research Center, 2019)
- Using TikTok as a search engine (Adobe Express survey, February 2026)
- Creator Search Insights on desktop (TikTok, login required)
- What Gen Z searches on TikTok dataset (48 searches, design, shares)
