Manuel Orbegozo/Ore Huiying/Getty Images
- TikTok is requiring US employees to come back to the office five days a week starting in September.
- The five-day RTO rule mirrors similar requirements at competitors like Instagram and Amazon.
- TikTok’s US business is partly run through a joint venture that includes its parent, ByteDance, and investors like Oracle.
TikTok is summoning its workers back to their desks full time.
TikTok said that, starting in September, it will require most US employees to return to the office five days a week, three staffers told Business Insider.
The in-office mandate will shake up schedules for some hybrid workers who are currently allowed to work from home at least one day a week. Other teams already have five-day RTO. For example, members of TikTok’s e-commerce division, TikTok Shop, have been coming in every day for more than a year.
The company’s US RTO plans have been in the works for months. In December, TikTok told employees across teams like product, marketing, and ad sales that they should prepare for a full office return in 2026.
TikTok joins a growing list of tech and media companies that have decided they want workers to badge into the office rather than dial in from the comfort of their couches.
TikTok rivals Instagram and Amazon both require staff to be in the office five days a week. Other companies like YouTube and Patreon are sticking to hybrid schedules and asking staff to come in three days a week.
Not all tech executives have leaned into RTO. Spotify has stuck to a flexible work schedule, and Dropbox’s new co-CEO Ashraf Alkarmi told Business Insider he plans to keep the company “virtual-first” because “flexibility and autonomy are the ultimate currency in modern work.”
TikTok operates offices across about a dozen US cities, including New York, Austin, Los Angeles, and Chicago. The company employs thousands of workers in the US and operates in the country partly through a joint venture that includes its parent, ByteDance, and a mix of investors like Oracle, the private equity firm Silver Lake, and the investment company MGX. Some functions like US e-commerce and marketing are overseen by TikTok’s global team within ByteDance, while other divisions focused on data protection or content moderation are separate in the US under the joint venture.
TikTok did not respond to a request for comment.
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