TikTok had 10.9 million users aged 18 and over in Australia, according to the most recent figures published in TikTok’s own advertising tools. Australian users of its Android app spent an average of 1 hour 14 minutes a day on the platform, the highest daily figure of any social app in the country.
Those two numbers are the ones most often quoted incorrectly. Below are 30 statistics on TikTok in Australia, each one carrying its source and the period it was measured. Where a widely repeated figure does not hold up, we say so.
Key Takeaways
- TikTok’s Australian audience is roughly 10.9 million adults, not 12.5 million. The higher figure in wide circulation does not appear in any primary source, including TikTok’s own published data.
- TikTok leads Australia on time and growth, not on reach. It wins on minutes per day and on year-on-year growth of +13.9%. YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram each report reaching more Australians, though their figures cover the total population where TikTok’s covers adults only.
- No verified Australian age breakdown for TikTok exists. TikTok told the Australian Parliament it does not disclose its Australian demographics. Any percentage split you see by age is an estimate at best.
- The under-16 social media ban took effect on 10 December 2025 and covers TikTok. About 4.7 million accounts were restricted across 10 platforms, but eSafety has confirmed it will not publish per-platform numbers.
- TikTok contributed an estimated A$1.1 billion to Australian GDP in FY23 and supported close to 13,000 jobs, per an Oxford Economics study TikTok commissioned.
Content
TikTok Users in Australia
TikTok’s Australian user base is best measured through the platform’s own advertising figures, which report reach among adults rather than total monthly active users. The distinction matters, because ad reach and monthly active users are different measurements and are easy to mix up. For the worldwide picture, see our global TikTok statistics breakdown.
1. TikTok had 10.9 million users aged 18 and over in Australia in late 2025. This comes from TikTok’s own advertising resources, as published in DataReportal’s Digital 2026 Australia report. The figure covers adults only, so it excludes under-18s entirely.
2. TikTok’s advertising reach equalled 51.2% of all Australian adults aged 18 and over. Just over half the adult population sat inside TikTok’s addressable advertising audience at the end of 2025, per DataReportal.
3. TikTok’s ad reach equalled 41.4% of Australia’s total internet user base. Measured against all internet users rather than adults alone, the share drops by roughly ten points, per DataReportal.
4. TikTok passed 8.5 million Australian users in June 2023. This is the figure the platform announced through its Australian newsroom three years ago. It is still widely quoted as current. It is not current, and it is useful now only as a growth baseline.
The 8.5 million figure still quoted as current is a 2023 baseline. TikTok’s Australian adult audience is now 10.9 million. Sources: TikTok Australian newsroom (2023), DataReportal Digital 2026 Australia.
5. Australia had 21.0 million social media user identities, equal to 77.7% of the population. Kepios analysis published in Digital 2026 Australia counts identities rather than people, since one person can hold several accounts.
6. Australia’s population reached 27 million, with 26.2 million internet users (97.1%). Near-universal internet access is the base against which every Australian platform figure in this article should be read, per DataReportal.
In March 2026, three months after the under-16 restrictions began, TikTok Australia’s general manager of global business solutions described the platform’s local audience as “more than 10 million people.” That statement and the 10.9 million adult figure are not directly comparable, since one is a rounded public statement and the other is an advertising reach estimate for adults. Both point to an audience in the region of 10 to 11 million.
Who Uses TikTok in Australia
The honest answer on TikTok’s Australian age breakdown is that no verified one exists. Answering a Senate committee on notice, the company told the Parliament of Australia: “As a private company, we do not publicly disclose our demographics, particularly given their commercial sensitivity.” Any Australian age split for TikTok is therefore modelled or inferred, not disclosed.
7. TikTok’s adult advertising audience in Australia was 53.6% male and 46.4% female in late 2025. DataReportal reports this from TikTok’s own advertising tools. Several widely circulated figures put the split the other way round, with women in the majority.
8. 95.7% of Australian internet users go online via smartphone, across 34.1 million mobile connections. TikTok is a mobile-first platform in a market where mobile access is effectively universal, per DataReportal.
9. Australian social media user identities overall split 50.8% female and 49.2% male. Across all platforms the national picture is close to even, per DataReportal, which makes TikTok’s male skew a platform-level characteristic rather than a national one.
10. 18.5 million Australians aged 18 and over use social media, equal to 87.0% of the adult population. Social media use is close to saturated among Australian adults, per DataReportal, so platform growth now comes mostly from taking share rather than from new users coming online.
Around 100 Australian news accounts operate on TikTok, including the ABC, taste.com.au, GQ, Vogue Australia and news.com.au, according to TikTok’s evidence to the Parliament of Australia.
How Long Australians Spend on TikTok
TikTok leads every other social platform in Australia on daily time spent. The figure is measured on Android app users rather than the full user base, which is a limitation worth carrying with the number rather than dropping. Our short-form video statistics for Australia cover format-level consumption across platforms.
11. Australian TikTok users spent an average of 1 hour 14 minutes a day in the app in August 2025. The measurement comes from Similarweb App Intelligence as published in Digital 2026 Australia, and covers active users of each platform’s Android app among the top 15 social apps. DataReportal notes this source changed, so these values are not comparable with earlier editions of the report.
12. TikTok ranks first in Australia for daily time spent, ahead of YouTube by two minutes. The full ladder, on the same Android measurement for August 2025:
| Platform | Average daily time (Android app users) |
|---|---|
| TikTok | 1h 14m |
| YouTube | 1h 12m |
| 1h 03m | |
| 0h 46m | |
| 0h 29m |
13. Australians spent an average of 5 hours 52 minutes online each day, or 41 hours 3 minutes a week. TikTok’s 1 hour 14 minutes represents roughly a fifth of the average Australian’s daily internet time, per DataReportal.
14. Australian internet users aged 16 and over spent 19 hours 28 minutes a week on social platforms. This is a weekly measurement from GWI’s Q2 2025 wave published in Digital 2026 Australia, not a daily figure multiplied out.
15. 33.8% of Australian internet users aged 16 and over use social networks to find information about brands and products. Counting all forms of social media rather than social networks alone, the figure rises to 59.6%, per GWI data in Digital 2026 Australia. These are the sound Australian numbers on social platforms as a discovery channel.
TikTok holds Australian attention longer than any other social app, but only by two minutes over YouTube. Source: Similarweb App Intelligence, August 2025, via DataReportal Digital 2026 Australia (Android app users).
A claim widely repeated in marketing coverage states that 86% of Australians aged 15 to 29 use TikTok as a search engine weekly. We could not support it. The underlying research measures 86% of Gen Z internet users in a United States sample, and the study was commissioned by TikTok. It is not an Australian figure, and we have left it out rather than repeat it.
TikTok Advertising and Growth in Australia
TikTok is the fastest-growing major social platform in Australia by advertising reach. It is not the largest, and the two are worth keeping separate.
16. TikTok’s Australian ad reach grew by 1.33 million people, or +13.9%, between the end of 2024 and late 2025. This was the fastest growth of any major platform in the Australian market, per DataReportal.
17. Instagram grew +8.6% (1.20 million) and Facebook +4.4% (750,000) over the same period. TikTok’s growth rate ran at roughly 1.6 times Instagram’s and more than three times Facebook’s, per DataReportal.
TikTok grew Australian ad reach faster than any major platform, roughly 1.6 times Instagram’s rate. Source: DataReportal Digital 2026 Australia, end of 2024 to late 2025.
18. TikTok added 396,000 to its Australian ad reach, up 3.8%, between July and October 2025. Quarter-on-quarter growth continued right up to the month before the under-16 restrictions took effect, per DataReportal.
19. More than 350,000 Australian businesses use TikTok. First stated by TikTok’s Australian newsroom in 2023, the company restated the same figure in March 2026.
20. TikTok’s 10.9 million adult reach puts it behind four other platforms in Australia. Advertising reach as a share of total population, per DataReportal:
| Platform | Ad reach (% of population) |
|---|---|
| 86.2%* | |
| YouTube | 77.7% |
| 66.6% | |
| 65.3% | |
| 56.0% | |
| Snapchat | 30.2% |
| X | 17.5% |
*DataReportal flags Reddit’s reported figure as anomalous and advises treating it with caution. TikTok does not appear in this table because the platform reports its Australian reach for adults aged 18 and over only, not against total population. Compared in people rather than percentages, TikTok’s 10.9 million adults sits below Instagram (about 15.1 million), Facebook (17.6 million), LinkedIn (18.0 million) and YouTube (about 21.0 million). TikTok’s number excludes under-18s where those four do not, so the gap is narrower than it looks, but not close enough to change the ranking.
21. Australian digital ad spend reached USD $15.4 billion, or 74% of total advertising spend. Influencer advertising accounted for USD $590 million of that, up 13.5% year on year. These are Statista Market Insights estimates for full-year 2025 published in Digital 2026 Australia, and they are reported in US dollars.
TikTok also launched two premium advertising formats in the Australian market in March 2026, per TikTok’s Australian newsroom: Prime Time, which serves three sequential ads to one user inside a 15-minute window, and Logo Takeover.
TikTok’s Economic Impact in Australia
TikTok commissioned Oxford Economics to measure its economic contribution to Australia. The findings below are the most substantial Australian dataset on the platform’s commercial footprint. Read them with the commissioning relationship in mind: TikTok paid for the study, and the figures are estimates rather than audited accounts.
22. TikTok contributed an estimated A$1.1 billion to Australia’s GDP in FY23. The figure comes from Oxford Economics Australia’s socio-economic impact report, commissioned by TikTok.
23. TikTok supported close to 13,000 Australian jobs in FY23. Oxford Economics counts jobs supported across the platform’s supply chain and the businesses trading on it, not TikTok’s direct headcount.
24. Advertising and marketing activity on TikTok generated A$1.0 billion in direct revenue for Australian businesses in FY23. This is money earned by Australian businesses through the platform, per Oxford Economics, and is separate from TikTok’s own revenue.
25. TikTok Australia reported revenue of A$375,161,280 for the year ended 31 December 2023. The figure comes from TikTok Australia’s financial statements as disclosed to the Parliament of Australia.
26. TikTok Australia reported profit after tax of A$11,384,473 for 2023. Also disclosed to the Senate committee, this puts TikTok Australia’s margin at roughly 3% of revenue.
TikTok’s Australian commercial footprint in FY23, with the platform’s own local revenue for comparison. Sources: Oxford Economics study commissioned by TikTok; TikTok Australia financial statements disclosed to the Parliament of Australia.
In Oxford Economics’ survey of Australian businesses using the platform, 78% said TikTok had a positive impact on their brand’s reach and 77% said it helped them reach new Australian audiences.
TikTok Shopping and Commerce in Australia
Australian purchasing behaviour on TikTok is well documented, and the shopping infrastructure works differently from what many Australian sellers expect. TikTok Shop operates as an outbound channel rather than a domestic marketplace: Australian brands can sell into the United States, United Kingdom and Singapore through it, per TikTok’s Australian newsroom, but there is no domestic Australian TikTok Shop serving Australian buyers.
27. 38% of Australian TikTok users bought a product recommended on the platform at least monthly in FY23. That share equated to roughly 3.2 million people, measured in the TikTok-commissioned Oxford Economics study against the platform’s Australian user base at the time, which TikTok then reported as 8.5 million.
28. 41% of Australian TikTok users visited a restaurant or shop they saw recommended on the platform in FY23, and 21% bought music or concert tickets. On the same FY23 user base, those shares equated to roughly 3.5 million and 1.8 million people, per the same TikTok-commissioned study.
TikTok and Australia’s Under-16 Social Media Ban
Australia became the first country to enforce a social media minimum age, and TikTok is one of the platforms covered. This is the largest change to Australian TikTok usage in years, and it is also where most published statistics become unreliable, because the regulator has said it will not release the platform-level numbers everyone is quoting.
29. Platforms restricted access to about 4.7 million accounts held by under-16s in the first half of December 2025. Australia’s social media minimum age obligation took effect on 10 December 2025, and the eSafety Commissioner reported the aggregate figure in January 2026, a figure also reported internationally. Ten platforms are covered: Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, X, Reddit, Twitch and Kick.
The aggregate is the only published number. eSafety has confirmed it will not release per-platform figures, so no TikTok-specific count exists. Source: eSafety Commissioner, January 2026.
30. Platforms that fail to comply face civil penalties of up to 150,000 penalty units, currently equivalent to roughly A$54.6 million. The penalty applies to platforms that do not take reasonable steps to prevent under-16s holding accounts. There are no penalties for under-16s who access a restricted platform, or for their parents or carers, per the eSafety Commissioner’s published guidance.
What is Confirmed and What is Not
Three facts about the ban’s effect on TikTok are firmly established: the law took effect on 10 December 2025, TikTok is one of the ten covered platforms, and 4.7 million accounts were restricted across all ten in the first fortnight.
What is not established is any TikTok-specific number. The eSafety Commissioner has stated it “will not be publishing specific numbers or detailed information obtained using its information-gathering powers,” which means there is no published figure for how many TikTok accounts specifically were removed in Australia, and no verified post-ban Australian user count for the platform. We have not included one, because one does not exist.
Panel data from parental-control software vendors has circulated since enforcement began, suggesting a share of under-16s still reach the platform. Those panels are self-selected rather than representative samples of Australian teenagers, so we have not counted them among the statistics above.
The next DataReportal cycle will be the first dataset to measure the ban’s effect on headline Australian user numbers. Until then, any claimed percentage decline in TikTok’s Australian audience is a projection, not a measurement.
What the Data Means for Australian Marketers
Three things in this data change how an Australian brand should plan for TikTok.
Plan on an adult audience. Every reliable Australian TikTok figure now describes people aged 18 and over, and the under-16 restrictions have removed the youngest segment from legitimate targeting entirely. Audience assumptions, forecasts and creative built on reaching teenagers no longer hold in this market.
Buy TikTok for attention, not for reach. TikTok holds Australian attention longer than any other social platform. On reach it sits behind YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram, though its published figure counts adults only where theirs count the total population. That makes it a weak choice for a pure reach buy and a strong one where watch time matters.
Output volume is the constraint most teams hit. In Vidico’s 2026 State of Creative Marketing in Tech report, a global survey of 230+ B2B tech marketing leaders, production capacity and internal approvals came out as the top two workflow bottlenecks.
At Vidico, we produce social and short-form video for Australian consumer and B2B brands, cutting one production into dozens of platform-native assets rather than a single hero film. For Koala, the Australian sleep brand, we cut a long-form campaign into social variants that lifted Positive Response Rate by 20% and won a Platinum Muse Award.
If you are costing out a short-form program, our guide to social media video costs breaks down what Australian production actually runs to.
Brands acting on these numbers typically brief a social media video production team that can turn TikTok trends into paid-ready assets fast.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many people use TikTok in Australia?
TikTok had 10.9 million users aged 18 and over in Australia in late 2025, based on figures published in TikTok’s own advertising tools and reported in Digital 2026 Australia. TikTok Australia’s general manager described the audience as “more than 10 million people” in March 2026. The 12.5 million figure in wide circulation does not trace to any primary source.
Is TikTok the most popular social media platform in Australia?
TikTok is Australia’s most-used social platform by daily time spent, but not by reach. Australian users of its Android app averaged 1 hour 14 minutes a day in August 2025, ahead of YouTube at 1 hour 12 minutes. On advertising reach TikTok sits behind YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram, which reach roughly 21.0 million, 18.0 million, 17.6 million and 15.1 million Australians respectively, against TikTok’s 10.9 million adults. TikTok’s figure covers adults aged 18 and over only, where those four cover the total population.
What is the age breakdown of TikTok users in Australia?
There is no verified age breakdown of TikTok users in Australia. TikTok told the Parliament of Australia that it does not publicly disclose its Australian demographics. Published age splits for the Australian TikTok audience are therefore modelled estimates rather than measurements, and should be treated as such.
Does the under-16 ban apply to TikTok in Australia?
Yes. TikTok is one of ten platforms covered by Australia’s social media minimum age obligation, which took effect on 10 December 2025. Platforms that fail to take reasonable steps to prevent under-16s holding accounts face civil penalties of up to 150,000 penalty units, currently equivalent to roughly A$54.6 million. Under-16s and their parents face no penalty. The eSafety Commissioner has confirmed it will not publish platform-by-platform account numbers.
How many Australian businesses are on TikTok?
More than 350,000 Australian businesses use TikTok, a figure the company first published in 2023 and restated in March 2026. A TikTok-commissioned Oxford Economics study estimated that advertising and marketing activity on the platform generated A$1.0 billion in direct revenue for Australian businesses in FY23.
The Bottom Line
TikTok in Australia is a platform of roughly 10.9 million adults that holds attention better than anything else in the market and grew faster than any major competitor through 2025. It is not the biggest platform in Australia, and the larger user figures in circulation do not trace back to a primary source.
The honest gaps matter as much as the figures. TikTok does not publish Australian demographics, and the eSafety Commissioner will not publish platform-level ban data, so anyone quoting a precise Australian age split or a precise post-ban decline for TikTok is estimating. The next annual data cycle will be the first to measure what the under-16 restrictions actually did.
For Australian marketing teams, the practical read is that TikTok is now an adult channel that rewards volume and watch time. Building for it means producing enough variations to find what works, which is the model we run for Australian brands at Vidico. If you are working out what that costs, our video production rates for Australia guide is the place to start, or take the pricing quiz for a tailored range.
Sources
- DataReportal: Digital 2026 Australia
- Parliament of Australia: TikTok answers to questions on notice
- eSafety Commissioner: Platforms restrict access to 4.7 million under-16 accounts across Australia
- eSafety Commissioner: Social media age restrictions
- eSafety Commissioner: Social media age restrictions FAQs
- Oxford Economics: The Socio-Economic Impact of TikTok in Australia
- TikTok Newsroom: Spotlight on new growth opportunities
- TikTok Newsroom: Celebrating our thriving community of Australians
- PBS News: Social media platforms removed 4.7 million accounts after Australia banned them for children younger than 16
