What is the most viewed video on YouTube?
As of 2026-08-18, the most viewed video on YouTube is Baby Shark Dance by Baby Shark - Pinkfong Kids’ Songs & Stories, with 17.2 billion views, ranked live across 24 of the platform's most watched videos via the SocialCrawl API. That is 8 billion views clear of the runner-up, Wheels on the Bus, which stands at 9.3 billion.
Last updated August 18, 2026
The numbers, right now
Last updated August 18, 2026
Baby Shark Dance
Most viewed video
17,236,129,526
Views
Baby Shark - Pinkfong Kids’ Songs & Stories
Channel
Luis Fonsi - Despacito ft. Daddy Yankee
Most liked of those ranked
24
Videos ranked
Live top 10
| Rank | Video | Views |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Baby Shark Dance | 17,236,129,526 |
| 2 | Wheels on the Bus | 9,278,812,062 |
| 3 | Luis Fonsi - Despacito ft. Daddy Yankee | 9,102,586,844 |
| 4 | Bath Song | 7,588,875,538 |
| 5 | Johny Johny Yes Papa 👶 THE BEST Song for Children | 7,232,623,421 |
| 6 | Wiz Khalifa - See You Again ft. Charlie Puth [Official Video] Furious 7 Soundtrack | 7,066,502,799 |
| 7 | Phonics Song with TWO Words - A For Apple - ABC Alphabet Songs with Sounds for Children | 7,064,853,448 |
| 8 | Ed Sheeran - Shape of You (Official Music Video) | 6,785,479,137 |
| 9 | Crazy Frog - Axel F (Official Video) | 6,113,125,879 |
| 10 | PSY - GANGNAM STYLE(강남스타일) M/V | 6,032,111,136 |
How we compute this
SocialCrawl reads the public view count for a curated basket of the most watched videos on YouTube via the API endpoint /v1/youtube/video, then ranks them by lifetime views. 24 videos were ranked on 2026-08-18. The basket is drawn from the videos already known to be the most watched, not an exhaustive scan of every video on YouTube, so it answers which of these is biggest rather than surveying the whole platform. Each video is listed under the name the reference sources use, which is the part of its YouTube title before the first vertical bar, because creators pack keywords and channel branding after that bar; the untouched title is kept in the snapshot alongside it. Like counts come from the same call, so the most liked video named on this page is the most liked of these 24, not of YouTube as a whole. A channel can hide its like count, and a video that does is still ranked on its views. Every count is read live, never estimated.
- Source endpoints
- /v1/youtube/video
- Sample size
- 24
- Computed
- 2026-08-18
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/youtube/video?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DXqZsoesa55w" \
-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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