The short-form video-hosting service TikTok was under a de jure nationwide ban in the United States from January 19, 2025, until January 22, 2025, due to the U.S. government's concerns over potential user data collection and influence operations by the government of the People's Republic of China. However, the ban was not enforced. The ban took effect after ByteDance, the China-based parent company of TikTok, refused to sell the service before the deadline of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (PAFACA). Prior to the ban, individual states, cities, universities, and government-affiliated devices had restricted TikTok.

In 2020, President Donald Trump proposed a ban of TikTok, describing it as a potential national security risk. In August, he signed an executive order instructing ByteDance to divest from the app, but a court blocked the order with an injunction in September. The Biden administration later reversed the order in 2021. In 2024, as lawmakers and federal agencies voiced renewed security concerns, PAFACA was introduced in Congress. The bill was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Joe Biden. It set a deadline for the app to be banned unless a qualifying divestment were to be made before then. After TikTok filed a legal challenge, the Supreme Court upheld the law.

On January 18, 2025, the day before the deadline of the law, TikTok voluntarily suspended its services in the United States, even though Biden had declined to enforce the ban on his last day in office. The following day, after President-elect Trump signaled that he would grant an extension to TikTok upon being inaugurated, services were restored. On January 20, the first day of his term, Trump signed an executive order that halted enforcement of the ban for a 75-day period while his administration pursues a potential sale of TikTok to American owners. This brought the deadline to April 5. On April 4, Trump signed an executive order to delay the ban's enforcement for another 75 days, to June 19. Then, on June 19, Trump signed yet another executive order, extending the deadline to September 17, With each delay, the Trump administration sent letters to TikTok's service providers, claiming a sweeping power to effectively set aside laws.

On September 16, Trump signed a fourth executive order, titled "Further Extending the TikTok Enforcement Delay" (EO 14350). This order extended non-enforcement until December 16, 2025. On September 25, Trump signed a fifth executive order, "Saving TikTok While Protecting National Security", extending non-enforcement for a further 120 days (until January 22, 2026), in order to allow a divestiture of TikTok's U.S. operations to be completed. The deal closed on January 22, 2026, with TikTok's U.S. activities divested into the newly incorporated TikTok USDS, ending the period of the de jure ban.

Background In January 2019, an investigation by the American think tank Peterson Institute for International Economics described TikTok as a "Huawei-sized problem" that posed a national security threat to the West because of the app's popularity with Western users. They included risks to armed forces personnel due to the app's alleged ability to convey location, image, and biometric data to its Chinese parent company, which is legally unable to refuse to share data with the Chinese government under the China Internet Security Law. ByteDance's founder and CEO Zhang Yiming issued a letter in 2018 stating that his company would "further deepen cooperation" with the ruling Chinese Communist Party to promote its policies. ByteDance contends that TikTok is not available in China and its data is stored outside of China, but its privacy policy has reserved the right to share any information with Chinese authorities. In response to national security, censorship, and anti-boycott compliance concerns, in October 2019, Senator Marco Rubio asked the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to open an investigation into TikTok and ByteDance. The same month, Senators Tom Cotton and Chuck Schumer sent a joint letter to the Director of National Intelligence requesting a security review of TikTok and ByteDance. In July 2020, the United States Department of the Treasury announced that TikTok was under CFIUS review.

In November 2019, the CFIUS opened an investigation into ByteDance's acquisition of Musical.ly. The same month, following a request by Senator Schumer, U.S. Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy agreed to assess the risks of using TikTok as a recruitment tool. Senator Josh Hawley introduced the National Security and Personal Data Protection Act to prohibit TikTok's parent company and others from transferring the personal data of Americans to China. Senator Hawley also introduced a bill to ban downloading and using TikTok on government devices because of national security concerns. In December 2019, the United States Navy as well as the U.S. Army banned TikTok from all government-issued devices. The Transportation Security Administration also prohibited its personnel from posting on the platform for outreach purposes. Following its prohibition by the U.S. military, the Australian Defence Force also banned TikTok on its devices. Legislation was subsequently introduced in the U.S. Senate that would prohibit all federal employees from using or downloading TikTok.

The Democratic National Committee issued a warning to the Democratic campaigns, state parties, and committees to ensure that additional security measures are implemented while using TikTok, citing concerns regarding the application's spying nature. In July 2020, the Joe Biden 2020 presidential campaign instructed its staff to delete TikTok for security reasons. Experts have been split on the question of whether or not TikTok poses a security risk, with some saying that it does while others have said that it does not.

Federal restrictions

First Trump administration (2017–2021) In December 2019, the United States Army and Navy banned TikTok on government devices after the Department of Defense labeled it a security risk. Before the policy change, army recruiters had been using the platform to attract young people. Unofficial promotional videos continue to be posted on TikTok under personal accounts, drawing the ire of government officials, but they have also helped boost the number of enlistees; several accounts have millions of views and followers.

On July 7, 2020, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the government was considering banning TikTok. In response, Sarah Cook, Freedom House's research director for China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, suggested that Trump's proposed TikTok ban may threaten free speech and "set a very problematic precedent" for banning apps in the United States. Patrick Jackson, chief technology officer of privacy company Disconnect, said the app sends an abnormal amount of data—mostly information about the phone—to its server, but there is limited evidence that TikTok shares that data with the Chinese government. He also noted that the amount of collected data was similar to that collected by American-originated social media platforms and was less than that collected by Facebook.

Executive orders to ban TikTok On July 31, 2020, President Donald Trump announced a decision ordering China's ByteDance to divest ownership of the application, and threatened to shut down its U.S. operations through executive action as soon as August 1 if the company did not comply. While the President has authority to intervene in transactions involving foreign companies doing business in the United States (including placing companies on an "entity list" that restricts their ability to conduct business with American companies), this sanctioning authority in relation to imported communications or information materials protected by the First Amendment is restricted under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917. Trump did not specify how he would enforce a ban.

Microsoft was reported to be in talks of acquiring TikTok. Later that day, President Trump announced plans to ban TikTok in the United States. Trump's ban threat was condemned by TikTok users, many of whom argued that national security concerns were being used as a cover by the administration to justify a ban as retaliation for pranks aimed at Trump by TikTok users (particularly, a ticket-purchasing effort to inflate projected and depress actual attendance of his June 20 campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma) and other content satirizing Trump or critical of him and his actions, especially in relation to his response to the George Floyd protests. Some have speculated that a ban or the threat thereof would result in political backlash, pushing many users (particularly within the app's core user base of adults aged 18–34, including those eligible to vote for the first time, which make up roughly 50% of the app's U.S. users) to vote against Trump, likely in favor of Democratic nominee Joe Biden, in the 2020 presidential election.

After Trump proposed to ban TikTok in the U.S. on July 31, 2020, security researchers expressed their concerns about the ensuing limitations on free speech. In one article, PCMag quoted Jennifer Granick of the American Civil Liberties Union who said that "banning an app that millions of Americans use to communicate with each other is a danger to free expression and is technologically impractical."

On August 1, ByteDance—which initially sought to maintain a minority interest in a sale to a U.S. buyer—agreed to divest TikTok outright to prevent a ban in the United States and in other countries (including Japan, Pakistan, and Australia) where restrictions are also being considered because of privacy concerns primarily related to its ownership by a China-based firm. A preliminary deal to sell the platform to Microsoft was submitted to President Trump for review, in which Microsoft would also assume data management responsibilities; preliminary terms allowed American investors in the platform to eventually acquire minority stakes in TikTok post-sale. Senator Lindsey Graham later expressed support for the Microsoft proposal.

In a video statement posted on TikTok that morning, Manager of U.S. Operations Vanessa Pappas stated that the company is "not planning on going anywhere" and is "building the safest app because we know it's the right thing to do." On August 2, it was reported by The Wall Street Journal that Microsoft had paused talks with ByteDance. Later that day, Microsoft confirmed that talks would continue following a conversation between CEO Satya Nadella and President Trump. Reportedly, after White House advisers persuaded him to hold off on banning TikTok outright because of the possible legal and political repercussions, Trump subsequently agreed to put a 45-day hold on any action against TikTok to allow ByteDance to divest the platform to Microsoft or, should a deal with the tech company not materialize, another American corporation.

On August 6, Trump signed Executive Order 13942, directing the Secretary of Commerce to prohibit all transactions between anyone under the jurisdiction of the United States and Bytedance if it did not sell TikTok to an American corporation; Trump also signed a similar order against the WeChat application owned by the Chinese multinational company Tencent. On August 14, Trump issued a new executive order giving ByteDance 90 days to sell or spin off its U.S. TikTok business. In the order, Trump said that there is "credible evidence" that ByteDance "might take action that threatens to impair the national security of the United States." On August 17, Oracle entered the race to buy TikTok's operations in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, working with U.S. investors—including General Atlantic and Sequoia Capital, who own stakes in TikTok—to secure a bid.