LinkedIn Hashtags in 2026: Do They Work and How Many to Use?

Hashtags still work on LinkedIn, but only a little: LinkedIn says they don't directly affect how widely a post is distributed, though they can help people find and understand it. Use zero to three specific tags, each written as one word in PascalCase, at the end of the post. You can no longer follow hashtags, so don't plan around that.

LinkedIn wound down its hashtag features in stages between 2023 and 2025, with little fanfare, so a lot of advice online is out of date. Here's what still works, what LinkedIn has said on the record, and what outside research adds.

How hashtags work on LinkedIn in 2026

You add a hashtag by typing # and a word into your post. LinkedIn's instructions for creating a post don't mention a hashtag button, so you type tags yourself. LinkedIn's developer documentation treats a hashtag in post text as its own marked-up element, not as plain text.

What a tag does after that is more limited:

• Following is gone. You can't follow a hashtag to get its posts in your feed. In July 2025, Rishi Jobanputra, a product leader on LinkedIn's feed team, said LinkedIn used to have a hashtag feed, people weren't really using it, and the company was getting rid of it. LinkedIn never gave a shutdown date; the timeline below shows what's on record.
• Search still uses them. Jobanputra said that's where hashtags help: when people look up a specific trend or topic.
• Clicking is unclear. LinkedIn doesn't document what a click on a tag does, and third-party reports disagree. Use a real link or an @mention for anything people need to reach.
• LinkedIn News still runs tagged conversations. LinkedIn's creator hub lists upcoming LinkedIn News themes, each with its own hashtag, and for at least one of them (#EarthDay) says LinkedIn News will feature posts that use the tag.

What changed, and when

LinkedIn never announced these changes in one place. Here's the record:

What LinkedIn says vs. what outside research says

What LinkedIn has said

• In that July 2025 video, Jobanputra summed hashtags up as "nice to have, not a need to have." He said the feed has become better at working out what a post is about and matching it to the right audience, and advised using tags related to your topic without going overboard.
• The FAQ on LinkedIn's creator hub leaves hashtags to your discretion. It explains that they have no direct effect on distribution but can help members find your post and grasp what it's about.
• LinkedIn's help center and creator hub don't give a recommended number of hashtags.

What third-party research claims

• A peer-reviewed study. Daniel Usera and Natalie Durham of the University of Texas at Arlington analyzed a random sample of 991 LinkedIn posts (Business and Professional Communication Quarterly, 2025). Hashtags and tagged people were both linked to more reactions, and tagging people was also linked to more comments. In a university Q&A, Usera put the sweet spot at two to three hashtags, with the benefit dropping off quickly after that. The study measured reactions, not reach, and it shows association rather than cause.
• Creator research. In August 2023, independent LinkedIn researcher Richard van der Blom reported that his team's data showed hashtags no longer changed reach in either direction: no boost from three to five tags, and no penalty for using more.
• Marketing guides. Many recommend three to five tags, and some present that as LinkedIn's own advice without linking to anything from LinkedIn. We found no LinkedIn source that says so.

How many hashtags to use, and where to put them

Use zero to three. If you use them, two or three specific tags is a sensible default that fits both LinkedIn's advice not to overdo it and the study above. Zero is fine for a personal update or a post that isn't about a searchable topic.

• Pick specific over generic. #SupplyChainPlanning describes a post; #Business describes almost anything on LinkedIn. One broader tag plus one or two narrow ones is a reasonable mix.
• Match the words in the post. Post search reads meaning as well as exact keywords, so the plain words people would search for belong in the post itself. A hashtag should repeat a topic the post already covers, not add a new one.
• Put them at the end. Tags in your opening lines push the hook down, and only the start of a post shows before LinkedIn's "…see more" cut. See how to structure a LinkedIn post for the rest of the layout.
• Copy campaign tags exactly. If your post fits a LinkedIn News theme, use its tag character for character.
• Count them. Tags are part of your post text, so they come out of LinkedIn's 3,000-character post limit. A character counter with a LinkedIn preset shows what's left.

Don't carry a tag block over from another network, either. Instagram, for example, has its own rules, covered in how many hashtags to use on Instagram.

Formatting rules for LinkedIn hashtags

• One word, no spaces. LinkedIn's developer documentation defines a hashtag as the # sign followed by a single word, so in "#remote work" only "remote" is tagged.
• Stick to letters and numbers. Punctuation inside a tag is a gamble with no upside. Write #B2BSales, not #B2B-Sales.
• Capitalize each word. Write #RemoteWork, not #remotework. LinkedIn's help page for its Career Pages hashtag tool says capitalization doesn't change which posts a tag pulls in (#XYZ equals #xyz), so capitals are for readers. The RNIB, a UK sight-loss charity, recommends capitalizing each word so screen readers read hashtags correctly, and LinkedIn's own campaign tags, such as #TheWorkShift, use this style.
• Never use styled letters. Bold or "fancy" letters such as 𝗥𝗲𝗺𝗼𝘁𝗲𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗸 are different Unicode characters, taken from a block that Unicode says is meant for math variables, not general text. A styled tag may not match the plain one, and the RNIB warns that screen readers may announce the style before each letter or skip the words entirely. Here's more on why fancy text breaks hashtags.

If you want emphasis, put it in your hook, not your tags. The trade-offs are covered in bold text and LinkedIn reach.

Hashtags on articles, newsletters and company pages

Articles and newsletter editions

LinkedIn articles are written on desktop (LinkedIn says the feature isn't available in the mobile app), and the same editor publishes a standalone article or a newsletter edition. During publishing, an optional field called Tell your network what your article is about lets you add commentary. That's the natural place for a one-line summary and two or three tags. LinkedIn's help page on article reach recommends sharing an article in a post with a few lines summarizing it, and says hashtags can make content more discoverable.

The article editor has real bold and italic, so you don't need Unicode styling there. To control how an article appears in Google and other search engines, use its SEO title and description settings.

Company pages

A page's posts follow the same rules as a member's. Older guides also describe tools for linking hashtags to a page and browsing their feeds as the page, but LinkedIn's help articles for those tools no longer load.

At least one page feature still runs on hashtags. If your company uses LinkedIn Career Pages, super admins can activate up to three hashtags on the Life or What We Do tab, and employees' photo and video posts that use them can show up in its Trending Employee Content section.

How to do it with BoldlyType

The LinkedIn hashtag generator gives you candidates to choose from.

1. In What's the post about?, describe the post in a sentence or two: the topic, your angle and your field.
2. Optionally fill in Target audience, such as procurement managers or junior developers.
3. Click Generate LinkedIn hashtags. You get 25 ideas in one line, mixing broad, mid-size and niche tags.
4. Keep the two or three that match what your post actually says, and rewrite them in PascalCase if they come back in lowercase.
5. Search each one on LinkedIn and look at the posts that use it. The generator doesn't look up real usage, so a tag can look plausible and have no conversation behind it.
6. Add the tags at the end of your post and check the length.

The generator sends your description to our server to produce ideas; it never posts anything. If you still need the post itself, the LinkedIn caption generator drafts options from a short description, and the LinkedIn text formatter has a feed preview that estimates where "…see more" will cut your text.

What can go wrong

• Expecting a reach boost. LinkedIn says tags don't directly influence distribution. If a post isn't being seen, fix the post: the hook, the topic and the conversation it invites.
• Stuffing. A long block of tags does nothing for distribution, and the study's lead author says the reaction benefit fades after two or three.
• Riding unrelated trends. An off-topic trending tag misleads people searching for it and ignores LinkedIn's advice to keep tags on topic.
• Broken tags. A space, symbol or styled letter can cut a tag short or change it. Read each tag back before posting.
• Invented tags. AI suggestions, including ours, can produce tags nobody uses. Check them in LinkedIn search first.
• Out-of-date advice. Guides that tell you to follow hashtags or add them to your profile describe features LinkedIn has removed.
• Tagging people just for reach. The same study linked mentions to more comments, but tag only people who are actually part of the post.