CapCut’s Days Numbered? The TikTok Ban Could Change Everything

ByteDance’s popular video-editing app CapCut faces an uncertain future in the United States, as its sister app TikTok teeters on the edge of a potential ban. U.S. regulators’ crackdown on TikTok – due to national security and data privacy fears – is casting a long shadow over CapCut, which is deeply entwined with TikTok’s ecosystem. The question now is whether CapCut can survive if TikTok is forced off the U.S. market.

CapCut, launched globally in 2020 by Beijing-based ByteDance, has become one of the world’s leading video editing platforms. The mobile app surpassed 300 million monthly active users worldwide as of 2024, accounting for an estimated 81% of the mobile video editing market​.

It offers easy-to-use tools for cutting clips, adding music, effects, and filters – features that helped it grow from around 50 million users in its first international year to hundreds of millions today​.

Crucially, CapCut integrates seamlessly with TikTok: creators can edit in CapCut and post videos directly to TikTok with a single tap​. On TikTok, the hashtag #CapCut appears on nearly 1 billion user-uploaded posts, which have amassed an astonishing 5 trillion views in total​. This symbiosis has made CapCut a go-to editing tool for TikTok influencers and everyday users alike.

Now, however, ByteDance’s U.S. operations are under intense scrutiny. TikTok’s Chinese ownership has long alarmed American officials​, who fear U.S. user data could be accessed by Beijing. Those concerns sparked a bipartisan push to regulate or ban TikTok and even other ByteDance apps.

Late last year, Washington passed a law requiring ByteDance to sell TikTok’s U.S. business or have the app shut down​. In January, with no sale completed, that law briefly took effect – TikTok went dark in the U.S. on January 19 as app stores removed it. In that tumultuous moment, other ByteDance-owned apps like CapCut and Lemon8 vanished from U.S. app stores as well​, showing how a TikTok ban could instantly affect CapCut’s availability.

An eleventh-hour political twist granted ByteDance a temporary reprieve. On his first day back in office this January, President Donald Trump signed an executive order delaying the TikTok ban by 75 days​, effectively extending the deadline into mid-June.

This 75-day extension is meant to give ByteDance one last chance to find a U.S. buyer for TikTok and secure the necessary approvals to keep the app running​. Despite this breathing room, TikTok’s fate remains precarious – and by extension, so does CapCut’s. ByteDance is reportedly in talks with potential buyers, but negotiations are sensitive and complicated by geopolitical tensions. The Supreme Court’s recent decision to uphold the sell-or-ban law has further underscored that U.S. authorities are serious about reining in TikTok​.

What’s next for CapCut? For now, the app remains available and continues to be widely used for editing. ByteDance has not announced any contingency plans for CapCut, even as it faces the looming mid-June deadline to resolve TikTok’s status.

In the meantime, content creators are bracing for all outcomes. Many are hoping TikTok – and by extension CapCut – survives under new ownership or stricter oversight rather than a ban. Others are weighing alternative editing tools should ByteDance’s apps become unavailable.

Some users have even begun migrating their workflow to non-Chinese video editors as a backup. For example, Movavi Video Editor and other rival apps are being considered as stable alternatives in case CapCut gets caught up in the TikTok turmoil. It’s a testament to how integral CapCut has become that its potential downfall is causing ripples in the creator community.