Why TikTok Still Operates — And What the 2026 Deadline Means

For the time being, every TikTok subscriber in the United States can continue to use the well-known ByteDance app due to a confused mix of presidential directives.

This is a good news for every TikTok subscriber in the United States who were nervously anticipating the social media app’s prohibition on December 16, 2025. Instead, TikTok subscriber can begin counting down the days until January 23, 2026 after the Christmas and New Year season as Christmas arrived early.

Theoretically, TikTok, which is controlled by the Chinese internet company ByteDance, previously had until December 16 to complete the sale of its U.S. division. And on January 20, 2025, Inauguration Day, that was required by law (the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act of 2024, if you’re feeling formal); in reality, there was a brief shutdown.

And then, since the Trump administration took office on that date, the deadline has been extended four times through executive order. The initial postponement occurred on April 4, 2025, where there was a 75-days extension ban to the Tiktok service by the Chinese company, ByteDance. ByteDance was given until June 19, 2025, it got a 90-days extension ban, to sell on that date by another executive decree. Then, guess what? The deadline was put out to December 16, 2025, by an executive order dated June 19.

Meanwhile, it appears that a TikTok sale is still a long way off. According to some accounts, negotiations have stalled, partly because the Chinese government sees the sale as leverage and has a negative opinion of the United States pressuring one of its enterprises. Furthermore, a deadline that is continuously extended isn’t actually a deadline at all.

Trump may seem to be strategically postponing the ban on purpose because he has frequently highlighted his own TikTok fan base. However, he’s also eager to claim credit for the potential sale, and it doesn’t really take an expert in international diplomacy to spot flaws in this hardball game. One of the most often used political truisms in 2025 is TACO, which you must be aware of.

In fact, Trump issued a second executive order on September 25 that instructed the U.S. Attorney General to refrain from taking “no action for noncompliance” against TikTok for “120 days from the date of this order”—that is, until January 23, 2026. Why? Due to the fact that “a plan has been presented to me to undergo a qualified divestiture of TikTok’s United States operations.”

The $14 billion sale of TikTok’s the U.S. division to a group run by Larry Ellison, a supporter of Trump, was reportedly part of that plan. Widespread misunderstanding has resulted from the lack of additional information and the Chinese government’s insistence that the transaction will not proceed.

So, 368 days after the initial ban was announced, on January 23, 2026, it is said that TikTok would be formally prohibited in the United States. Everyone’s prediction is as good as ours, although it definitely wouldn’t be prudent to stake one’s life savings on it in light of the data from the previous year.

And due to executive extensions and ongoing talks for the sale of its American subsidiary, TikTok will continue to operate in the United States until early 2026, when it might be formally prohibited. And this is as a result of the federal law mandating TikTok’s divestment or prohibition which was affirmed in early 2025, executive actions have repeatedly postponed enforcement. The latest deadline is now scheduled for January 23, 2026.