TikTok video size: 1080 x 1920, ratio and file limits

Why 1080 x 1920 when the minimum is 540 x 960

TikTok's own floor for a vertical ad is 540 by 960 pixels, but a phone screen is usually at least 1080 pixels wide, so a 540 pixel video is scaled up and looks soft. 1080 by 1920 is the same 9:16 shape at full phone resolution and is what most editing apps export for vertical video. Going higher, to 1440 by 2560 or 4K, makes a bigger file without a visible gain on a phone, and the ad limit is 500 MB, so long, high bitrate files can exceed it.

The parts of the screen TikTok covers

TikTok does not publish its safe zone as numbers. Its help page says the safe area depends on the video's dimension, the caption length and any extra formats, and offers downloadable template files instead, with a separate file for Arabic right to left layouts. Measured from those templates on a 1080 by 1920 frame, the working figures are about 130 pixels at the top, 484 at the bottom and 140 on the right. The bottom band is the deepest: it holds the caption, the account name and the sound line, so on screen text belongs in the upper middle.

Horizontal and square on TikTok

TikTok accepts 16:9 and 1:1 videos, with minimums of 960 by 540 and 640 by 640, but they play inside the vertical screen with empty space around them. A horizontal clip from YouTube looks like a small strip in the middle of the feed. If the source footage is wide, crop a 9:16 frame from the action rather than posting it letterboxed, and use the aspect ratio calculator to see how much of the width that crop keeps.

Common mistakes

Putting a price or a call to action at the very bottom of the frame, where the caption sits on top of it. Uploading a 4K file that is larger than it needs to be. Exporting at a low bitrate so text edges smear; TikTok's floor for ads is 516 kbps, and a clean vertical video at 1080 by 1920 usually needs several times that. Reusing a video with another app's watermark. And forgetting that a long caption pushes the covered band higher, which is exactly why TikTok gives templates rather than a fixed number.

Making a TikTok video at this size

The video builder's vertical format is 1080 by 1920 at 30 frames a second, which is TikTok's full screen shape, so the editor makes this size directly: choose vertical in the generator, describe the video and export an MP4. Captions are burned into the frame, sitting 120 pixels above the bottom edge in vertical videos, which is inside TikTok's caption band, so keep caption lines short and check the export in the social safe zone checker. The blank 1080 by 1920 PNG here works as a cover or a first frame.

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