TikTok and Instagram Caption Limits: Characters, Hashtags and What Gets Cut Off

If you post the same short video to TikTok and Instagram Reels, you probably write one caption and paste it twice. The two apps don't count that text the same way, and they don't allow the same number of hashtags. We read each platform's own documentation (fetched November 2, 2026) to get the numbers as of November 2026. We also note where the sources disagree and where they say nothing.

This post is about the text under the video. For the video itself, see our post on Instagram Reels length and format.

A note on bias: Blipix is our product, and the free caption tools on our site are ours too.

In short

• TikTok video caption: up to 2,200 "UTF-16 runes," per TikTok's developer documentation. Hashtags and @mentions count toward that.
• Emojis: in that unit, many count as two and some count as more.
• TikTok photo posts: the title can be up to 90 and the description up to 4,000. That description is where the "4,000" you see quoted online comes from.
• Instagram: a caption can be up to 2,200 characters. The Help Center allows up to 5 hashtags per post. The developer reference still says 30, and we follow the 5.
• "More": both apps cut long captions off in the feed. Neither one publishes how many characters show before the cut.
• From Blipix: the TikTok box stops at 2,000, so the text always fits. On Instagram, Blipix joins a title and a caption into one, and a series' standard hashtags can push the count over 5.

TikTok caption limits

TikTok's numbers come from the developer documentation for its Content Posting API, which apps use to publish to TikTok for a creator. The Direct Post reference calls the video caption post_info.title and says:

"The maximum length is 2200 in UTF-16 runes."

The same page says TikTok finds hashtags (#) and mentions (@) in the caption text itself, separated by spaces or new lines. They're part of the caption, so every one of them counts toward the 2,200.

One caveat: this is the limit for apps that post through TikTok's API. We haven't found an official TikTok page that gives the limit for typing a caption in the TikTok app, so we won't claim the in-app number is the same.

Photo posts have a title and a description

Photo posts work differently. The Photo Post reference gives them two separate fields:

• Title: "The maximum length for photo posts is 90 in UTF-16 runes."
• Description: "The maximum length for photo posts is 4000 in UTF-16 runes."

That second number is the source of the claim on some sites that TikTok captions can be 4,000 characters. For a video, the documented maximum is 2,200.

Why emojis can count double

"UTF-16 runes" is TikTok's term. We read it as UTF-16 code units, which is the unit JavaScript uses to measure the length of text. MDN's reference page for String.length explains it: length is counted in UTF-16 code units, and each Unicode character takes one or two of them. So the count can differ from the number of characters you see. Emojis are the usual reason.

In practice:

• Ordinary letters, digits, spaces and punctuation count as one each.
• Many emojis count as two.
• Emoji sequences, where several emojis are joined to show as one symbol, count as more than two.

A caption that's mostly words won't notice the difference. A caption full of emojis can reach TikTok's 2,200 while it still looks well short of that.

Instagram caption and hashtag limits

Instagram has two official sources on this, and they don't fully agree.

Caption length

Meta's IG User Media reference for developers describes the caption like this:

"Maximum 2200 characters, 30 hashtags, and 20 @ tags."

So an Instagram caption can be up to 2,200 characters, the same figure as a TikTok video caption, and can tag up to 20 accounts. The reference doesn't say how "characters" are counted, and we found no official statement on it. So we can't tell you whether Instagram counts an emoji as one character or two.

Hashtags: 5, not 30

The Instagram Help Center page on hashtags says:

"You can use up to 5 tags on a post."

And:

"If you include more than 5 tags on a single photo/video, your comment won't post."

So the developer reference still says 30 hashtags, while the Help Center says 5 per post. We follow the Help Center's 5 for two reasons: it's the rule written for people posting, and it's the stricter one. A caption that respects it is fine under either rule. The second sentence mentions comments; the first sets the limit for the post as a whole, so we keep the caption at 5 or fewer.

The same Help Center page also says:

• You can add hashtags in the caption or in the comments of a post.
• Hashtags can include numbers, but spaces and special characters such as $ or % won't work.
• Posts from private accounts won't appear publicly on hashtag pages.

What gets cut off behind "more"

The 2,200 is how much a caption can hold, not how much people see. In the feed, both apps show the start of a long caption and hide the rest behind "more" until someone taps it.

How much shows before the cut? Neither TikTok nor Instagram publishes a number, and we won't invent one.

We can show that the visible part is short. Below is a 179-character caption from our free Instagram tool. The dashed line marks roughly where the feed on a phone cuts it off.

So even a caption under 200 characters can be cut off. That means:

• Most people only read the opening words.
• If a caption gets cut off, the hashtags at its end are behind "more." They still count toward the limits above.
• On Instagram posts from Blipix, the first line is the title you write in the publish dialog (see below).

TikTok, Instagram and YouTube Shorts side by side

Caption limits by platform, as of November 2026

If you also post the video as a YouTube Short, YouTube Help allows 100 characters for the title and 5,000 for the description, and our post on YouTube title, description and tag limits covers the details.

Writing one caption that fits both

This is our own approach, not advice from either platform. It follows from the numbers above.

1. Follow the stricter rule in each case. That means 2,200 in total, which both apps share, and Instagram's 5 hashtags. A caption that meets both works in either app.
2. Put the point of the post in the opening words. Both apps cut the caption off in the feed, and many people won't read past the cut.
3. Put five hashtags or fewer at the end. Then the same text works on TikTok and Instagram without edits.
4. If you use a lot of emojis, stay well under 2,200 on TikTok. TikTok counts in UTF-16, so a caption full of emojis can be over the limit while it looks under it.

What this means if you use Blipix

Blipix makes 9:16 short videos for TikTok and Instagram Reels and can publish them for you. Here's how Blipix builds the caption, how its limits compare with the platforms', and where the text can run over.

Posting to TikTok from the editor

In the publish dialog, the TikTok tab has one required "Caption" box. It starts filled with the video's AI-written description, then a space, then its hashtags, and you can edit it. The box stops at 2,000 characters (the counter shows x/2000), a little under TikTok's 2,200. Blipix sends that text as the TikTok caption.

The caption boxes use HTML's maxlength attribute. According to MDN's maxlength reference, that is measured in UTF-16 code units. So Blipix counts emojis the same way TikTok's API does, and anything that fits in the box fits on TikTok.

Blipix also sets TikTok's AI-generated flag on every video it posts there. According to TikTok's documentation, TikTok then adds its "Creator labeled as AI-generated" tag in the video's description. We cover how each platform handles these labels in our post on labeling AI-generated videos.

Posting to Instagram from the editor

The Instagram tab has two required fields. "Title" takes up to 150 characters. "Caption" takes up to 2,200 and starts filled with the AI description, a space, then the hashtags. Blipix joins them into one Instagram caption: the title, a blank line, then the caption.

This has two effects:

• The title is the first line people see, so it's the part before "more."
• Each box has its own count, so together they can go over Instagram's 2,200. Keep the title and caption under about 2,198 characters combined, because the blank line between them takes 2.

Instagram Stories posted from Blipix go out without a caption.

Hashtags: four from the AI, plus your standard hashtags

For each video, Blipix's AI writes:

• a title of 10 to 100 characters
• a description of 20 to 500 characters, with no hashtags in it
• exactly 4 hashtags

Unedited, that's well within both apps' limits.

Series can push the count up. You can set up to 10 "Standard Hashtags" for a series. The setting says they are "always added to every episode of this series, on top of the ones generated automatically." Blipix adds them after the AI's 4 and skips duplicates. So a series with 2 or more standard hashtags can end up with 6 or more per episode, which is over Instagram's 5.

If a series posts to Instagram, use at most one standard hashtag, or edit the caption before posting.

Series auto-posting adds a footer

Series auto-posting publishes episodes to YouTube, TikTok and Instagram with no manual edit, so Blipix builds the caption for you:

• TikTok: the description, then the series' "Social Media Footer," then the hashtags.
• Instagram: the title, a blank line, then the description, footer and hashtags.

A long footer uses up space and pushes the hashtags further back, so keep it short. There's another reason: if the same footer and hashtags make up most of every caption, the series starts to look templated. We cover why that matters in our post on YouTube's inauthentic content policy for faceless AI channels.

On-screen captions are something else

The words burned into the video are set in the editor's Captions tab. There you choose the font, word color, active-word highlight, placement (top, center or bottom) and maximum words per caption. These are part of the video. This article is only about the post caption.

The free caption tools

Our free TikTok caption generator and Instagram caption generator are simpler. You type a topic and optional keywords, and GPT-3.5 Turbo writes one caption with hashtags and emojis. You get two free captions a day. In our tests the captions were around 200 characters, far below either app's 2,200. The model can't see TikTok or Instagram, so it can't know which hashtags are active.

Prices for Blipix itself are on our pricing page.

FAQ

What is TikTok's caption limit?

2,200 UTF-16 runes for a video caption, according to TikTok's developer documentation for apps that post through its API. Hashtags and mentions count toward it, and many emojis count as two.

Where does the "4,000 characters" figure come from?

From TikTok photo posts. A photo post's description can be up to 4,000 UTF-16 runes, and its title up to 90. The 4,000 doesn't apply to video captions.

How many hashtags can I use on Instagram?

Five per post, according to the Instagram Help Center. Meta's developer reference still says 30. We follow the Help Center because it's written for people posting and it's the stricter rule.

How many characters show before "more"?

Neither TikTok nor Instagram publishes a number. In our example above, even a 179-character caption was cut off, so put the point of the post in the opening words.

Does Blipix keep my caption within the limits?

Partly. When you post from the editor, the TikTok box stops at 2,000, counted the same way TikTok counts. On Instagram, keep the title and caption together under about 2,198 characters. In a series, use at most one standard hashtag, and keep the footer short for auto-posts.