Most popular posts on Instagram as of 2026, by number of likes
The all-time most liked Instagram posts have long been dominated by two names: Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. Messi's carousel celebrating Argentina's 2022 FIFA World Cup win, posted on December 18, 2022, reached 50 million likes within 24 hours and now sits at about 74.5 million - the most liked post not just on Instagram but across any social platform. Between them, the two footballers hold 9 of the top 20 posts (Messi 5, Ronaldo 4), a concentration no other pair of accounts comes close to. The total Instagram audience these likes are drawn from is in our Instagram statistics analysis.
The far bigger story in 2026, though, is what now surrounds those football posts. Since 2024 a wave of viral Reels from small, previously anonymous accounts has surged into the top 20 - Justin Flom's fun-house Reel (#3, about 54.3M), Kishore Mondal's singing Reel (#5, about 51.4M), an Insta360 toddler-camera clip (#6, about 47M), and two Reels from the pianist Emil Reinert. These accounts had a tiny fraction of the following that Messi, Ronaldo, or Kylie Jenner commanded, yet their short videos out-liked almost every celebrity photo ever posted. It is a direct result of Instagram pushing Reels into the feeds of non-followers at enormous scale. The hashtag and discovery mechanics behind this reach are in our Instagram most used hashtags analysis.
Messi 74.5M, Egg 60.5M, Justin Flom Reel 54.3M - Top 20 Most Liked Instagram Posts of All Time (2026)
The gap between #1 (Messi, about 74.5M) and #20 (about 32.7M) is only about 2.3x, far tighter than in earlier years - a sign that the top of the list has filled in as more posts cross the 30-40 million mark. Messi's World Cup carousel remains a clear outlier at the very top, but positions 3 through 9 are now occupied almost entirely by viral Reels rather than the celebrity announcements that used to sit there. A single post with 33 million likes has been liked by more accounts than the entire population of Canada. The gender split of who engages with football versus entertainment content is in our Instagram users by gender worldwide analysis.
Top 20 Most Liked Instagram Posts - Full Data Table (2026)
| Rank | Account | Description | Likes (M) | Posted | Category |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | @leomessi | Celebrating the 2022 World Cup win | ~74.5M | Dec 2022 | Sport |
| 2 | @world_record_egg | Photo of a plain brown egg | ~60.5M | Jan 2019 | Viral |
| 3 | @justinflom | Reel of a Las Vegas fun house | ~54.3M | Feb 2026 | Reel |
| 4 | @leomessi | In bed with the World Cup trophy | ~53.4M | Dec 2022 | Sport |
| 5 | @kishore_mondal_official | Reel singing "Jeene Laga Hoon" | ~51.4M | Apr 2025 | Reel |
| 6 | @insta360 | Tiny camera filming a toddler walking | ~47.0M | May 2025 | Reel |
| 7 | @isabellastricklandd | Child roaming while wearing a POV camera | ~46.5M | Apr 2026 | Reel |
| 8 | @bredypett | Reel of children with dogs | ~45.0M | Oct 2025 | Reel |
| 9 | @epicflipzandkickz | Reel of a bottle-flip trick | ~44.2M | Nov 2025 | Reel |
| 10 | @cristiano | Messi and Ronaldo chess (Louis Vuitton) | ~41.1M | Nov 2022 | Sport |
| 11 | @leomessi | On a plane with the World Cup trophy | ~40.9M | Dec 2022 | Sport |
| 12 | @leomessi | Visit to Camp Nou | ~38.2M | Nov 2025 | Sport |
| 13 | @emilio.piano | Reel singing "Pretty Little Baby" | ~37.7M | Nov 2025 | Reel |
| 14 | @taylorswift | Engagement announcement | ~37.5M | Aug 2025 | Celebrity |
| 15 | @emilio.piano | Reel singing "My Heart Will Go On" | ~36.9M | Sep 2024 | Reel |
| 16 | @cristiano | Icy dip in Lapland, Finland | ~35.2M | Dec 2024 | Sport |
| 17 | @xxxtentacion | Final post before his death | ~34.0M | May 2018 | Celebrity |
| 18 | @cristiano | Wedding to Georgina Rodriguez | ~33.8M | Aug 2026 | Celebrity |
| 19 | @leomessi | Celebrating the World Cup win in Argentina | ~33.2M | Dec 2022 | Sport |
| 20 | @cristiano | Joining Al-Nassr FC announcement | ~32.7M | Dec 2022 | Sport |
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The middle of the table tells the real 2026 story. Positions 3 and 5 through 9 - Justin Flom, Kishore Mondal, Insta360, Isabella Strickland, Bredy, and EpicFlipzAndKickz - are all viral Reels, most posted in 2025 or 2026 by accounts that were essentially unknown beforehand. Two of the top 15 belong to a single account, the pianist Emil Reinert (@emilio.piano), whose short clips of children singing reached 37 million and 36 million likes. This is a fundamental shift from the list of a few years ago, which was almost entirely footballers and A-list celebrities. The broader engagement context is in our social media statistics and facts analysis.
Messi 5, Ronaldo 4, Emil Reinert 2 - The Accounts With the Most Top-20 Posts
The two footballers still anchor the list: Lionel Messi holds 5 of the top 20 most liked posts (four of them from the December 2022 World Cup) and Cristiano Ronaldo holds 4, spanning the Louis Vuitton chess ad, his Al-Nassr signing, his icy Lapland dip, and his 2026 wedding to Georgina Rodriguez. Together they account for nearly half the list. The only other account with more than one entry is the pianist Emil Reinert (@emilio.piano), whose two Reels of children singing both cleared 36 million likes. Every remaining slot belongs to a different single-post account. The age profile of the audiences engaging with these posts is in our Instagram users by age group worldwide analysis.
What has changed most is the size of the accounts involved. When the world_record_egg took the record in 2019, it was remarkable precisely because @world_record_egg had zero followers - every other record-holder in history had been a major celebrity. In 2026 that is no longer the exception. Accounts like @justinflom, @kishore_mondal_official, @isabellastricklandd, and @bredypett had modest followings before their Reels went massively viral, reaching tens of millions of likes largely through Instagram's algorithmic distribution to non-followers rather than through an existing fan base. The egg, once a one-off stunt, now looks like a preview of how Reels routinely break into the top 20. The age distribution of those doing the liking is in our Instagram users by age group analysis.
Sport 40%, Viral Reels 40% - Football and Reels Now Split Instagram's Like Records
A few years ago, football posts made up roughly 60% of the top 20 and celebrity announcements filled most of the rest. In 2026 the picture is very different: sport (all of it football) and viral Reels each make up about 40% of the top 20, with traditional celebrity posts down to around 15% and the world_record_egg its own single category. Football still holds the #1 spot and the most posts by a single sport - no other sport appears anywhere in the top 20 - but it no longer dominates the way it did, because the viral-Reel category barely existed at this scale before 2024.
The shrinking celebrity share is the quieter story. Only three clear celebrity posts remain in the top 20 - Taylor Swift's engagement announcement with Travis Kelce (about 37.5M), XXXTentacion's final post before his death in 2018 (about 34M), and Ronaldo's 2026 wedding. Kylie Jenner's daughter photo, which held the overall record before the egg with about 17.7 million likes, has long since dropped out of the top 20 entirely. The kind of intimate celebrity announcement that once set records is now routinely out-liked by a well-timed Reel of a child, a pet, or a stunt. The total social media user base these posts draw on is in our global social media users worldwide analysis.
From Bieber's 0.2M in 2012 to Messi's 74.5M - How the Instagram Like Record Climbed
The ceiling for a single Instagram post has risen more than 350-fold since the platform's early days. In 2012 the most liked post belonged to Justin Bieber with a few hundred thousand likes. The record then passed through a run of celebrities - Kim Kardashian's wedding kiss (about 2.2M, 2014), Kendall Jenner's heart-shaped hairdo (about 3.5M, 2015), Selena Gomez (about 6.6M, 2016), Beyonce's pregnancy reveal (about 10.6M, 2017), and Kylie Jenner's daughter (about 17.7M, 2018). Each was a step up, but all sat comfortably under 20 million likes.
The two step-changes stand out. The jump from Jenner's 17.7 million in 2018 to the world_record_egg's 60.5 million in 2019 - more than tripling the record in a single post - was not driven by an existing following but by the novelty of a coordinated challenge that turned Instagram's whole user base into a promotion channel. Messi's further rise to about 74.5 million in December 2022 came from the most watched sporting event on earth. That record has now stood for roughly four years, longer than any holder except the egg itself - though the fast-climbing viral Reels of 2025 and 2026, several already above 50 million, are the most credible threat to it yet. The platforms hosting these viral moments are ranked in our biggest social media platforms by users analysis.
Instant Emotional Hook + Algorithmic Reach - The 2026 Viral Formula No Longer Needs Fame
The single biggest lesson from the 2026 top 20 is that a massive existing following is no longer required to reach tens of millions of likes. Roughly half the list now comes from accounts that were small before their post went viral. What every post in the top 20 shares instead is an instant, universally legible emotional hook - a World Cup won, a child singing, a pet, a jaw-dropping stunt - that lands in under a second and needs no caption, culture, or language to understand. Combined with Instagram pushing Reels to enormous numbers of non-followers, that hook is now enough on its own.
Two traits have collapsed compared with the list of a few years ago. "Big existing following" has fallen from near-universal to about half, and "tied to a global event" from most of the list to under half, both pulled down by the viral-Reel accounts that had neither. The Reel format itself now appears in more than half the top 20, up from almost none before 2024. Professional production is present in only about 40% - many of the biggest Reels are casual phone videos. The one constant is emotional immediacy: every single post in the top 20 delivers a feeling instantly, which is the closest thing to a necessary condition for extreme virality. The marketing view of these platforms is in our social media platforms used by marketers worldwide analysis.
2025 and 2022 Are the Two Big Years - The Reel Wave Rivals the World Cup
Sorting the top 20 by the year each post was published shows two peaks. 2022 contributes about 6 posts, almost all from the December World Cup - the Messi and Ronaldo posts that still hold the top of the list. But 2025 now contributes about 7 posts, more than any other single year, and almost all of them are viral Reels rather than sporting or celebrity moments. Where 2022's cluster came from one global event, 2025's came from Instagram's Reels algorithm surfacing a steady stream of universally shareable short videos. Early 2026 has already added about 3 more.
The near-absence of 2020, 2021, and 2023 from the top 20 is striking. Those years produced no single post able to break into a list whose floor is now above 32 million likes, even though Instagram kept adding users throughout. The record itself was set in 2022 and has not moved since, but the volume of posts crossing the top-20 threshold has swung sharply toward 2025 and 2026 as Reels reshaped how attention concentrates on the platform. The daily usage behind all this engagement is in our daily social media usage worldwide analysis.
Instagram 74.5M, TikTok ~60M, YouTube ~50M - Instagram Leads, but Not by as Much as Before
When Messi's post set the Instagram record in December 2022, it also became the most liked post across all social platforms - but the gap to its rivals is narrower than it looks. Instagram's peak (about 74.5M) sits ahead of TikTok's most liked video (Bella Poarch's lip-sync clip at about 60 million likes) and YouTube's most liked video (the "Despacito" music video at about 50 million likes), and far ahead of the peaks on Facebook (about 12M) and X/Twitter (about 4M). Instagram leads, but TikTok and YouTube are now within striking distance rather than being lapped.
The comparison is not perfectly like-for-like, since a "like" means something different on each platform - a low-friction double-tap on Instagram, a heart on TikTok, a thumbs-up on YouTube - and the counts accumulate over very different time spans. What is clear is that the three video-forward platforms (Instagram, TikTok, YouTube) sit far above the older feed platforms. Facebook's peak (about 12M) reflects an older audience and a social graph fragmented across groups and pages, while X/Twitter's (about 4M) reflects a platform built around replies and reposts rather than likes. The broader ranking of these platforms by user base is in our biggest social media platforms by users analysis.
Instagram Most Liked Posts - Key Statistics (2026)
Frequently Asked Questions - Instagram Most Liked Posts 2026
Lionel Messi's FIFA World Cup celebration post, with about 74.5 million likes, posted on December 18, 2022 after Argentina beat France. It surpassed the world_record_egg (about 60.5M likes) in December 2022 and has held the record since. Messi has 5 posts in the all-time top 20; it is also the most liked post across all social media platforms. Source: Wikipedia list of most-liked Instagram posts, 2026. Approximate.
The world_record_egg is a plain photo of a brown egg posted by @world_record_egg on January 4, 2019 with the goal of beating Kylie Jenner's daughter photo (then about 17.7M likes) as the most liked post. It succeeded in about 10 days and now has about 60.5 million likes, ranking second of all time. The account had zero followers at the time and was later revealed to be the work of advertising creative Chris Godfrey and friends, tied to a mental health awareness campaign. Source: Wikipedia, 2026.
The most liked post (Messi's World Cup celebration) has about 74.5 million likes as of 2026. The second (world record egg) has about 60.5 million. The top 10 posts all exceed roughly 41 million likes, and the 20th has about 32.7 million. All posts keep accumulating likes over time, so these are approximate cumulative totals. Source: Wikipedia list of most-liked Instagram posts, 2026. Approximate.
Lionel Messi, with 5 posts in the all-time top 20 - mostly from the 2022 World Cup. Cristiano Ronaldo has 4. Together the two footballers hold nearly half the list. Beyond them, the pianist Emil Reinert has 2 Reels in the top 20, and the remaining slots go to single viral posts from accounts such as @justinflom, @kishore_mondal_official, @insta360, @isabellastricklandd, @taylorswift, and @xxxtentacion. Source: Wikipedia, 2026.
Because Instagram pushes Reels to huge numbers of people who do not follow the account. A short video with an instant, universal hook - a child singing, a pet, a stunt - can now reach tens of millions of viewers on discovery alone, without an existing fan base. Since 2024, Reels from small accounts (Justin Flom, Kishore Mondal, Insta360, Emil Reinert) have made up roughly 40% of the top 20, a category that barely existed at this scale before. Source: Wikipedia, Instagram platform data 2026.
The world_record_egg (about 60.5 million likes) held the record from January 2019 until December 2022, when Messi's World Cup posts overtook it - the longest any post has held the top spot. Before the egg, the record belonged to Kylie Jenner's daughter photo (February 2018, about 17.7M likes), and before that to Beyonce's pregnancy announcement (about 10.6M, 2017). Source: Wikipedia most-liked Instagram posts history.
Yes - a recent development. The camera brand Insta360 has a Reel in the top 20 (about 47 million likes, #6), showing a tiny camera filming a toddler walking. Ronaldo's Louis Vuitton chess ad with Messi (#10) is also effectively branded content. This is new: for years no brand post came close to the roughly 30-million-like threshold for the top 20, because audiences did not share the emotional investment they have with people. Reels have started to change that. Source: Wikipedia, Instagram platform data 2026.
Quite possibly, and sooner than expected. The fast-climbing viral Reels of 2025 and 2026 have already reached the low-to-mid 50 millions (Justin Flom about 54M), closing the gap that once looked unbridgeable. A Reel with the right universal hook, or a post from the 2026 FIFA World Cup in North America if a huge football nation wins, are the most likely challengers. As Instagram's user base and Reels distribution keep growing, the theoretical ceiling rises with them. Source: platform data analysis. Speculative.
Wikipedia - List of Most-Liked Instagram Posts - Primary source for the top 20 ranking, like counts, post descriptions, dates, and the record-holder progression. Publicly maintained and continuously updated (August 2026 revision used here).
Instagram Platform Data - Direct Post Like Counts (2026) - Cross-check for like counts where publicly displayed. For posts where likes are hidden, most recent public count from tracking databases used.
Statista - Most Liked Instagram Posts Worldwide 2026 - Cross-reference for rankings and historical like-count data, compiled from platform data.
DataReportal - Instagram Statistics 2026 - Context source for Instagram user base size at the time of record-breaking posts and platform engagement benchmarks.