TikTok ban was due Dec. 16. There is a new deadline.

In case you’re a U.S.-based TikTok consumer who was anxiously counting down the times till the social media app was banned on Dec. 16, 2025, then there’s excellent news. Christmas got here early — you can begin counting down the times till Jan. 23 as a substitute.

Dec. 16 was, in idea, the newest deadline for TikTok, which is owned by Chinese language tech agency ByteDance, to wrap up a sale of its U.S. enterprise. That was presupposed to occur by regulation (the Defending People from International Adversary Managed Purposes Act of 2024, for those who’re feeling formal) on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, 2025; in reality, there was a short shutdown.

The deadline has been prolonged 4 occasions, by way of government order, because the Trump administration gained energy on that date. The primary delay took us to April 4, 2025. On that date, one other government order gave ByteDance till June 19, 2025 to promote. Then, guess what: a June 19 government order pushed the deadline again till Dec. 16, 2025.

Within the meantime, we appear to be no nearer to a TikTok sale. By multiple accounts, negotiations have become bogged down, partly as a result of the Chinese language authorities takes a dim view of the U.S. strong-arming certainly one of its firms and views the deal as leverage. To not point out {that a} constantly-extended deadline is not an actual deadline in any respect.

Trump, who has repeatedly drawn consideration to his personal following on TikTok, might seem like he is tactically delaying the ban. However he is additionally eager to take credit score for the potential of a sale, and IT does not precisely take a global diplomacy skilled to see weaknesses on this sport of hardball. You simply must know certainly one of 2025’s hottest political truisms: TACO.

Certainly, on Sept. 25, Trump issued one other government order directing the U.S. Legal professional Normal to take “no motion for noncompliance” in opposition to TikTok for “120 days from the date of this order” — which brings us to Jan. 23, 2026. Why? As a result of, Trump wrote, “a plan has been introduced to me to bear a professional divestiture of TikTok’s United States operations.”

That plan was stated to contain a $14 billion sale of the U.S. arm of TikTok to a consortium together with Oracle, which is led by Trump backer Larry Ellison. However no additional particulars have materialized, and the Chinese government insists the sale isn’t going ahead — resulting in widespread confusion.

So will TikTok be formally banned within the U.S. on Jan. 23, 2026, 368 days after the unique ban was stated to go forward? Your guess is pretty much as good as ours — however given the proof of the previous yr, IT most likely would not be smart to wager your life financial savings on IT.