TikTok has never been offered in mainland China, and India has banned it since 2020. Others have blocked it over harm to society or children, and a US law that threatened a ban ended with a US joint venture taking over in 2026.
Every day we open TikTok from inside 24 countries, mostly over home broadband, and record
where it’s blocked, since when and how.
3 of 24tested countries with a confirmed block of TikTok
Blocked in China and Iran, and on some networks in India. 24 of 24 results confirmed in the last 48 hours.
Blocked means the networks we test there failed to open www.tiktok.com, twice, while it opened elsewhere.
“Turned away by the site” means TikTok itself refused visitors from that country.
* First observed on this date: the block may be older. Older results are excluded from current totals.
Background
Where TikTok is restricted, and why
TikTok isn’t offered in mainland China: there its owner, ByteDance, runs a separate app, Douyin, and China’s censors have blocked tiktok.com since at least 2019. TikTok also chose to stop operating in Hong Kong in July 2020, days after Beijing imposed a national security law on the city. In Iran, Freedom House lists TikTok among the major platforms that remained blocked or filtered through May 2025.
India banned TikTok and 58 other Chinese apps on 29 June 2020 under Section 69A of its IT Act, citing threats to its sovereignty and security and to users’ data, and in September 2025 the IT minister said there was “absolutely no proposal” to bring it back. In the US, a 2024 law ordered ByteDance to sell TikTok or face a ban; the app went dark for several hours in January 2025, and a majority-American joint venture took it over on 22 January 2026.
Other bans have been about TikTok’s effect on society. Nepal banned it from November 2023 to August 2024, citing harm to “social harmony and goodwill”, and lifted the ban once TikTok agreed to help the police trace misuse; because it had registered, TikTok was spared Nepal’s September 2025 block on unregistered platforms. Albania blocked TikTok in March 2025, after a schoolboy was stabbed to death in a fight that began on social media, and lifted the ban in February 2026.
Some limits come from TikTok itself or from security rules. In March 2022 TikTok stopped people in Russia from posting new videos or live streaming, after the Kremlin made spreading “fake news” about its invasion of Ukraine a crime, and cut them off from non-Russian content. In 2023 the UK banned TikTok on government devices over data-security risks, in line with the US and Canadian governments and the European Commission; those bans cover only official devices.
Key dates
Albania lifts its TikTok ban, almost a year after providers were told to block the app, as a court challenge is due to be heard.
A majority-American joint venture takes over TikTok’s US app, with Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX as its managing investors.
TikTok goes dark in the US for several hours after the Supreme Court upholds the law that required its sale.
Nepal lifts its TikTok ban, imposed in November 2023, after the company agrees to help the police trace misuse.
TikTok suspends new uploads and live streaming in Russia after a law against “fake news” about the war in Ukraine.
India bans TikTok and 58 other Chinese apps under Section 69A of its IT Act.
Get past a block
TikTok blocked where you are?
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History
Changes for TikTok
No confirmed changes since monitoring began on 29 Sep 2026. When a block appears or lifts, and a re-check on several machines agrees, it shows up here.
Method
How we test
Test machines on the two biggest home-internet providers in most countries open the homepage every day.
A failure counts only when it happens twice on the same network, while the site opens from other countries.
A change is published only after re-checks a few hours later and again the next day, on several machines per provider, confirm it. It’s dated from the first sighting.
Test machines caught getting around blocks, through a VPN or a filter-dodging tool, are set aside.
We test websites, mostly over home broadband. Apps, calls and mobile networks can behave differently.
India has banned it since June 2020, and it isn’t offered in mainland China, where ByteDance runs Douyin. Freedom House says Iran kept it blocked or filtered through May 2025. Nepal banned it from November 2023 to August 2024 and Albania from March 2025 to February 2026, while the US settled on a sale instead of a ban.
Why Is TikTok Banned on Government Phones?
Because of data-security fears, not a public ban. The UK barred TikTok from government devices in March 2023 as a “precautionary” step, after a security review of how sensitive information on official devices could be accessed, matching earlier moves by the US and Canadian governments and the European Commission. The bans cover only official devices.
Why Did Albania Ban TikTok?
Prime Minister Edi Rama announced a one-year ban in December 2024, after a 14-year-old was stabbed to death near a school in Tirana in a fight that had begun on social media. Providers blocked TikTok from March 2025, and the government lifted the ban in February 2026, as a court challenge to it was due to be heard.
