Who Owns TikTok?

TikTok in the UK is owned by ByteDance, the Chinese-founded technology group, and the person recorded at Companies House as controlling its main UK company is Zhang Yiming, ByteDance’s founder, registered in Singapore. The January 2026 deal that handed TikTok’s US operations to an American-led joint venture does not apply here — it covered the United States only. Ownership verified 5 September 2026.

Who owns the TikTok brand?

TikTok is a product of ByteDance, founded in Beijing in 2012 and now headquartered in the Cayman Islands with major operations in Singapore. TikTok is not a separate independent company; it is one of ByteDance’s services, alongside Douyin, its Chinese counterpart.

In the UK, the operating company is TikTok Information Technologies UK Limited (10165711), incorporated on 6 May 2016 and registered in London. A separate TikTok Limited (11540707) exists from August 2018. Be careful with name matching here: Companies House returns 235 companies containing “TikTok”, and most have no connection to the app — TikTok Integration Limited (04974773) was incorporated in 2003, five years before ByteDance existed.

Parent company and ultimate owner

The registered person with significant control of TikTok Information Technologies UK Limited is Zhang Yiming, recorded as holding more than 25% but not more than 50% of the shares and between 50% and 75% of the voting rights, with a registered country of Singapore. That entry was notified on 5 December 2017, replacing an earlier one for Sheng Fu which ceased the same day.

Note what the register actually says. The UK company’s controller is recorded as an individual, not as ByteDance Ltd, and his share and voting percentages differ from each other — a common structure where voting power exceeds economic ownership. Above him sits ByteDance itself, which is privately held and registered in the Cayman Islands, so its full shareholder register is not a matter of UK public record.

Brand owner vs operating company

Three things carry the TikTok name and are not the same.

The UK operating company is TikTok Information Technologies UK Limited — it employs UK staff and files UK accounts.

The group is ByteDance, which owns the platform, the brand and the recommendation technology.

The US business is now separate. Since January 2026 TikTok’s American operations sit in a joint venture, reported as roughly 80.1% US-owned — with Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX as managing investors — and ByteDance retained about 19.9%, below the threshold set by the American divest-or-ban law. That restructuring changed who runs TikTok in the United States. It did not change ownership in the UK, and a UK reader asking “who owns TikTok” is not asking about the joint venture.

When the ownership changed

ByteDance launched TikTok internationally in 2017 and merged Musical.ly into it in 2018, which is how the app reached its Western audience. The UK company’s PSC entry dates from 5 December 2017.

The significant recent event is the US divestiture, which closed on 22 January 2026 after several years of legal and political pressure. It is genuinely important — and genuinely US-only.

Related brands in the same group

ByteDance also operates Douyin, the Chinese app that shares TikTok’s design but is a separate product on a separate network, along with other services including the CapCut editing app. Douyin and TikTok are frequently described as the same app in two countries; they are two apps from one owner, with different content, different moderation and different data.

Sources and verification

The UK ownership statements come from the Companies House register and the PSC filings for company 10165711, which can be checked directly. Company numbers are given so the right entity can be identified among the hundreds sharing the name.

The ByteDance group structure above the UK company is not verifiable from UK records — ByteDance is privately held outside the UK, and the UK register simply stops at Zhang Yiming. The US joint-venture percentages are reported figures from the January 2026 transaction rather than register-verified ones, and are included because they are widely misread as applying worldwide. Companies House does not verify most filed information.