How to find trending hashtags on TikTok in 2025
TL;DR: Use TikTok's search bar, Creative Center, and competitor profiles to surface trending hashtags in your niche. Pair 3-5 targeted hashtags per post with a strong link-in-bio page so the traffic you earn actually converts.
How to find trending hashtags on TikTok: the short answer
The fastest method is TikTok's own search bar. Type a broad topic into search, switch to the Hashtags tab, and you get real-time volume data and related tags. For a more strategic approach, TikTok Creative Center (at ads.tiktok.com/creative-center/hashtag) shows trending hashtags by country, industry, and time window with exact 7-day and 30-day view counts. Between those two tools you can identify what's actually moving in your niche in about five minutes.
The rest of this guide covers four methods in detail, the hashtag count question people get wrong, and how to turn that hashtag traffic into something your link-in-bio page can actually work with.
Why hashtags still matter on TikTok in 2025
TikTok's algorithm is primarily interest-based, meaning the For You page can surface your video to millions of people who've never heard of you. Hashtags feed that system two ways: they tell the algorithm what category your content belongs to, and they put your video in front of people actively searching that topic. According to TikTok's own creator research, videos with at least one relevant hashtag get broader distribution than untagged videos in the same category.
The Discover tab is gone, replaced by a Friends tab, but the hashtag search function is still very much alive. When someone searches a hashtag they care about, the most engaging recent videos in that tag show up. If your video is there and it hooks in the first two seconds, you get the click. That's the game.
There's a second reason hashtags matter that most guides skip: they're part of TikTok's text index. TikTok captions allow up to 4,000 characters now, and the platform reads them. A hashtag like #sustainablefashion functions as a keyword, not just a category label. Your video gets associated with that term in search, the same way a blog post gets indexed for a phrase.
Four methods to find trending hashtags on TikTok
Each of these methods surfaces a different layer of the hashtag ecosystem. Use at least two in combination to get tags that are both trending and relevant to your specific content.
1. TikTok search bar (fastest, most current)
Open TikTok, tap the search icon, and type your niche keyword. Before you hit enter, the autocomplete suggestions are trending searches right now. After searching, switch to the Hashtags tab. You'll see the hashtag, the total view count, and related tags below it. The autocomplete is updated daily so what you see today is actually trending today, not last month's data pulled from a third-party scraper.
Filter your results by the past 7 days to cut through hashtags that are huge in total volume but currently dead. A hashtag with 500 million total views but nothing posted in the last week is not going to help you ride any wave.
2. TikTok Creative Center (best for strategy)
Creative Center is TikTok's free advertising resource at ads.tiktok.com/creative-center/hashtag. You don't need an ad account to use the trend data. You can filter by country, date range, and industry category. The data shows view count, the percentage change in the past 7 days, and related hashtags grouped by theme.
This is where you identify hashtags that are growing, not just large. A hashtag with 20 million views that grew 140% in the past week is more valuable than one with 2 billion views that grew 3%. Creative Center surfaces both numbers.
3. Competitor and creator research (best for niche discovery)
Find five creators in your niche who regularly get strong engagement. Not necessarily the biggest accounts. Look specifically for creators whose content is similar to yours who are getting views on recent posts. Open their last ten or fifteen videos and look at the captions. The hashtags they use repeatedly and that appear on their higher-performing videos are actively working in your category right now.
This method surfaces niche-specific tags that Creative Center's broader categories miss. If you make content about sourdough baking, the hashtags a popular sourdough creator used on a video that got 800k views last Tuesday are more immediately useful than any generic food hashtag.
4. For You page observation (most organic signal)
The videos TikTok serves you are not random. They're calibrated to your behavior history. When you see a video that's clearly performing well in your niche, tap the caption to expand it and look at what hashtags appear. If TikTok is boosting that video to you, and you make similar content, those hashtags are signals worth testing.
Create a simple note in your phone. When you see a video in your niche with unusually high views and recent publish date, copy the hashtags into the note. After two weeks you'll have a list of tags that are consistently appearing on strong performers in your category.
How many hashtags to actually use
The honest answer is that TikTok has never published a specific number that reliably outperforms others, and anyone claiming otherwise is guessing. What the creator community has converged on through testing is this: 3-5 specific, relevant hashtags outperform both single hashtags and giant stacks of 20+ hashtags for most creators.
The reason large hashtag stacks underperform is distribution dilution. When you tag #fyp (over 50 trillion views), you're competing with every single video on the platform for a tiny slice of that audience. A hashtag like #veganbaking (a few hundred million views) puts you in front of people who actually watch baking content. Specificity wins on a crowded platform.
The exception is if you're in a very small niche where even the specific hashtags have low total volume. In that case, layering in one or two broader tags makes sense to ensure enough audience pool.
One tag to skip entirely: #fyp adds no algorithmic benefit that TikTok has confirmed, and it burns a spot you could use on something targeted.
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Turning hashtag traffic into followers and sales
Getting views is one thing. Turning those views into people who buy from you, subscribe to your newsletter, or follow you on another platform is the problem most TikTok guides don't address.
TikTok only gives you one link, and it's in your bio. Every video you make that gets traction from a trending hashtag is driving traffic to that single link. If that link goes to your Linktree page covered in their branding, with no custom domain, and no analytics that tell you which video sent which visitor, you're leaving real money and audience on the table.
A link-in-bio page with a custom domain does three things a free Linktree page doesn't. First, it's SEO-indexed under your name, not Linktree's. When someone searches your name or brand after seeing your TikTok, your profile page can rank. Second, click analytics that are tied to UTM parameters tell you which video or hashtag campaign is actually driving conversions. Third, you don't force your audience through someone else's branding before they get to your content.
MyLinks.page lets you use a custom domain, shows you exactly which links get clicked and from where, and doesn't put a MyLinks logo on your free tier. If you're currently sending hashtag traffic to a generic Linktree URL, the setup takes about 60 seconds to import everything you already have.
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Common hashtag mistakes that cost you reach
The biggest mistake is using the same hashtag set across every video. TikTok's system notices repetition and it can suppress your reach over time. Rotate your hashtags based on the specific content of each post. A video about meal prep should have different hashtags than a video about grocery shopping, even if your account is a general cooking account.
The second mistake is treating hashtags as an afterthought you add right before posting. The hashtags that work are ones you researched before you scripted the video. If #airfryerrecipes is trending this week in your niche, make a video specifically designed for that tag rather than slapping it on a video that has nothing to do with air fryers.
Third: copying hashtags from accounts in completely different categories just because those accounts are large. A fashion creator's hashtag set won't help a fitness creator. The audience overlap is too thin for the algorithm to benefit your distribution.
Putting it together
Finding trending hashtags on TikTok is a 10-minute research task you should do before every video, not a one-time set-and-forget move. Use the search bar for current trending data, Creative Center for strategic pattern-finding, competitor captions for niche-specific discovery, and your own For You page for organic signals. Pick 3-5 relevant tags, skip #fyp, and rotate your set for each post.
The bigger opportunity is what happens after someone watches your video and wants more. Every time a hashtag puts your content in front of a new audience, your link in bio is the only path to converting that viewer into something lasting. Make sure that link goes somewhere worth landing on.