What are the correct TikTok video specs?
Resolution, aspect ratio, frame rate, bitrate, loudness and the safe zone, all in one place. Here are the TikTok specs that matter, why each one exists, and how to tell if your export actually hits them.
By Thomas, founder of CutScore · Updated June 2026
Specs sound like the boring paperwork of posting, the part you skip to get to the fun bit. I used to think so too, right up until I posted a perfectly good clip that arrived with grey bars top and bottom because I exported it square out of habit. It looked like a meme template from 2019. Nobody finished it.
Here is the thing the specs are really protecting you from. TikTok is a full-screen, vertical, sound-on feed, and it re-encodes everything you upload. If your file does not match what the app expects, TikTok does not politely fix it. It crops, it pads, it squashes the bitrate, and it can turn your crisp footage into a soft, blocky version of itself. The specs are not bureaucracy. They are the shape of the hole your video has to fit through.
Most of these numbers are dull and almost entirely under your control. Get them right once, save the preset, and you never think about them again. Get them wrong and the algorithm is the least of your problems, because the video literally looks like an accident. Here is the full list.
The correct TikTok video specs, in one table.
Every number you need to export a vertical TikTok clip that arrives clean. Screenshot it, save it as an export preset, and stop guessing each time you post.
| Spec | Target to hit | What goes wrong if you skip it |
|---|---|---|
| Resolution | 1080×1920 | Lower and the app upscales soft footage; the spec is full-quality 1080p vertical. |
| Aspect ratio | 9:16 | Square or landscape gets cropped or padded with bars, wasting the screen. |
| Orientation | vertical | A landscape clip sits in a tiny strip; the feed is built for portrait. |
| Frame rate | 30 or 60 fps | Mismatched or converted frame rates stutter; export at what you shot. |
| Codec | H.264 | The safest, most compatible codec; exotic ones can fail to upload. |
| Container | MP4 | MP4 is the universal pick; MOV also works, but MP4 is the default. |
| Bitrate | ≈ 10–16 Mbps | Too low looks blocky; absurdly high just bloats the file before re-encode. |
| Loudness | ≈ −14 LUFS | Too quiet and your clip feels weak next to the next one in the feed. |
| True peak | ≤ −1 dBTP | Hot peaks crackle and distort after TikTok re-encodes the audio. |
| Safe zone | centre column | Text near the right or bottom edge hides behind the buttons and caption. |
| Length | fits the cut | TikTok allows long uploads now; let the edit decide, not the limit. |
Reading off your export settings line by line gets old fast. CutScore inspects the file, compares it to the platform spec, and tells you what is off before you post.
Why each TikTok spec exists, and how to hit it.
Resolution and aspect ratio: 1080×1920, 9:16
This is the one that actually shows. TikTok fills the whole phone screen, top to bottom, and that screen is a tall 9:16 rectangle. Export at 1080×1920 and your video maps onto it pixel for pixel. Go wider, like 16:9 landscape, and TikTok either crops the sides off your subject or floats your clip in a little box with black bars above and below. Go square and you get bars too. There is no penalty for vertical and a real one for everything else, so build the edit vertical from the start rather than cropping a landscape file at the end and hoping.
Frame rate: export what you shot, 30 or 60 fps
Frame rate is where smooth video quietly goes to die. The rule is simple: export at the frame rate you filmed at. If you shot 30 fps, export 30. If you shot 60 for slow motion, export 60 and let the slowed sections do their thing. Trouble starts when you convert, dropping a 60 fps clip to 30 or forcing 24 fps cinema footage into a 30 fps timeline, because the editor has to invent or discard frames and the motion judders. If you are unsure which to pick, our note on shot pacing matters more for how a TikTok feels than chasing 60 fps for its own sake.
Codec, container and bitrate: H.264, MP4, healthy bitrate
These three travel together. Use the H.264 codec inside an MP4 container, because that is the combination every app, phone and uploader understands without complaint. For bitrate, a 1080×1920 clip looks clean somewhere around 10 to 16 Mbps. Below that, fast motion and busy backgrounds smear into blocks. Far above it, you are just making a giant file that TikTok will re-compress on upload anyway, so you gain nothing and wait longer to post. Pick a sensible bitrate, not the maximum your editor offers. More on what a sane technical export looks like in our checks.
Loudness and true peak: −14 LUFS, under −1 dBTP
Specs are not only about the picture. TikTok is a sound-on feed, and loudness is where a lot of clips lose before the first word. Normalise your whole mix toward −14 LUFS, the same loudness target the big platforms settle around, so your video does not feel timid next to the one before it. Then keep your true peak at or below −1 dBTP so nothing crackles once TikTok squashes the audio. Quiet, distorted, or buried-under-the-music sound is the fastest amateur tell on the platform, and none of it needs a better microphone to fix.
The safe zone: keep your text out from under the buttons
This is the spec no export dialog mentions and almost everyone learns the hard way. TikTok lays its own interface on top of your video: the like, comment, share and profile buttons run up the right side, your username and caption sit along the bottom, and the search and "For You" tabs can cover the very top. Anything you place in those areas gets partly hidden. Keep your captions, your call to action, and any key visual roughly in the central column. I shipped a tutorial once where the one number that mattered sat behind the share button for the whole clip. Read your own caption on an actual phone, in the app, before you call it done.
Here is a real CutScore report for an everyday vertical clip: resolution, loudness, safe-zone text and the rest, scored, with timestamps and the exact fixes.
The three specs that wreck a TikTok.
Most "why does my TikTok look off" problems come down to these three. Fix them first and the rest is fine-tuning.
By eye, by file inspector, or in one pass.
By eye in the app
Free and worth doing. Upload as a draft, watch it full-screen in the TikTok app, and look for bars, cropped subjects, captions behind buttons, and audio that feels quiet. The catch: you can see the wrong shape, but you cannot eyeball whether you are at −14 LUFS or what your true bitrate is.
With a file inspector and a meter
Accurate and honest. A media inspector reads back resolution, frame rate, codec and bitrate; a loudness meter reads your LUFS and true peak. The cost is time and knowing the targets, opened tool by tool, for every single video you post. Fine if you enjoy this. Most creators do not.
With a coach in one pass
Hand the file (or a link) to CutScore. It reads the resolution, aspect ratio, frame rate, bitrate, loudness and safe-zone text against the right spec, then returns a 0 to 100 score with timestamped evidence and the fixes. No inspector, no meter. See a sample report.
Frequently asked.
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