How location works on TikTok when publishing

When you publish TikTok content through the platform, the location used for distribution is based on the TikTok account, not your current physical location. This article explains how that works.

Where is TikTok content published from?

When scheduling TikTok content with the platform, it’s important to understand how location affects your post’s visibility.

✅ Publishing from the platform (TikTok official API)

When you publish directly from the platform, you're using the official TikTok API for third parties. That means the process is server-to-server, so:

• Your IP or physical location at the time of publishing is not used.

• TikTok uses the location registered in your account to apply its algorithm.

👉 For example:

• If your TikTok account is registered in the United States, your videos will be treated as U.S. content even if you’re in another country.

• If your account is from Spain, TikTok will treat it as Spanish content.

This determines which algorithm your content goes through:

📝 You can’t add a visible location to the video when publishing through the API. That option is only available when posting from the TikTok app directly.

🔔 Notification publishing (manual via the app)

If you prefer to publish from the TikTok app itself, you can still schedule your content in the platform and enable notification publishing:

1. Schedule your content in the platform.

2. Get a mobile notification at the set time.

3. Publish manually from the TikTok app.

💡 Bonus: you can add a location to your video and post it natively.
👉 How to set up notifications for TikTok

How does TikTok decide what to show users?

TikTok’s algorithm customizes content for each user based on:

• User interactions: likes, comments, shares, watch time.

• Video info: captions, sounds, hashtags.

• Device and account settings:

• Preferred language

• Registered country

• Device type
  (and according to some reports, also the IP and SIM card if you post from the app)