What are the best hashtags for Instagram?
As of 2026-09-25, the most-used hashtag across top Instagram Reels is #viral, appearing on 30.4% of the 280 reels SocialCrawl sampled across 10 broad discovery hashtags.
Last updated September 25, 2026
The numbers, right now
Last updated September 25, 2026
#viral
Top hashtag
30.4%
Share of trending
280
Videos sampled
Live top 10
| Rank | Hashtag | % of trending videos | Views |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | #viral | 30.4% | 1,121,408 |
| 2 | 21.4% | 534,610 | |
| 3 | #trending | 21.1% | 672,954 |
| 4 | #reels | 20.7% | 1,256,843 |
| 5 | #explore | 16.8% | 724,138 |
| 6 | #love | 15.7% | 260,603 |
| 7 | #instagood | 13.9% | 286,621 |
| 8 | #fyp | 12.1% | 398,754 |
| 9 | #food | 10.0% | 880,124 |
| 10 | #fashion | 8.6% | 213,988 |
How we compute this
We sample the top Instagram Reels for 10 broad discovery hashtags via /v1/instagram/search/hashtag (media_type=reels), extract every hashtag from the captions of 280 reels, and rank them by how many reels use each, tie-broken by total views. Recomputed on a regular cadence.
- Source endpoints
- /v1/instagram/search/hashtag
- Sample size
- 280
- Computed
- 2026-09-25
Run this yourself
One API call returns the same live feed we sampled. Drop in your key and go.
curl "https://www.socialcrawl.dev/v1/instagram/search/hashtag?region=US" \
-H "x-api-key: sc_your_api_key_here"Have a question? We got answers
Find answers to frequently asked questions about SocialCrawl's API, pricing, and capabilities.
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