Do hashtags work on Pinterest in 2026?

No, not as hashtags. They are not clickable, there is no hashtag feed, and Pinterest treats them as ordinary words in the description. The word after the # still counts as text, so a hashtag neither helps nor hurts much. It just takes up space that a proper sentence would use better.

What replaced hashtags on Pinterest?

Two things. Keywords in the pin's title, description, alt text and board, which Pinterest reads to decide what a pin is about. And tagged topics, a field where you choose up to 10 interests from Pinterest's own list when you create or edit a pin.

How many tagged topics should I add to a pin?

Add the ones that genuinely match, up to the limit of 10. Specific topics do more than general ones. A pin about a slow cooker chili recipe should be tagged with topics about chili and slow cooker meals before anything as broad as food.

Should I delete hashtags from my old pins?

Usually not. Editing hundreds of old pins is slow and the gain is small, since the words still count as text. Spend the time on new pins instead. Edit an old pin only when it is still getting traffic and its description is so full of hashtags that there is no real sentence in it.

Can I use hashtags in my Pinterest bio or board descriptions?

You can, but there is no reason to. Pinterest reads the words either way, and plain sentences read better to people. Use the space for a clear description of what the board or account is about.

Pinterest hashtags in 2026: do they work, and what to use instead

Updated October 21, 2026 · 6 min read

The straight answer

Hashtags do not work on Pinterest the way they work elsewhere. They are not clickable. There is no feed of pins for a hashtag. Pinterest's guidance for getting found is about keywords and tagged topics, and it treats a hashtag as what it is on the page: a word with a symbol in front of it.

That word still counts. A description that says "#slowcooker #chili" tells Pinterest the pin is about slow cookers and chili, the same as the sentence "a slow cooker chili recipe" would. The hashtag is not harmful. It is just a worse way of saying the same thing, and it uses characters you could spend on a sentence that persuades someone to click.

If you are here because you wanted a hashtag generator, what you actually need is a keyword and a set of tagged topics. The rest of this guide is about those.

What Pinterest reads instead

Pinterest decides which searches a pin can appear in from the text attached to it:

Where	Limit	What it does
Title	100 characters	The strongest signal, and the only text shown in the feed
Description	800 characters	Read by search, shown when the pin is opened, not in the feed
Alt text	500 characters	Describes the image for screen readers and confirms the topic
Board name and description	50 characters for the name	Every pin on the board inherits the board's topic
Text in the image		Pinterest detects overlay text and reads it
Tagged topics	up to 10	Interests chosen from Pinterest's list, invisible to viewers

Keywords go in the first four, written as normal sentences. The guide to adding keywords on Pinterest covers each field in turn.

Tagged topics are the closest thing to what people hoped hashtags were.

What tagged topics are

When you create or edit a pin, there is a field for tagged topics. You type and Pinterest offers matches from its own list of interests. You can add up to 10. Viewers never see them. They are a signal to Pinterest about which interests the pin belongs to, alongside the keywords.

The important difference from hashtags: you cannot invent one. "#myawesomeblog" was a valid hashtag. There is no tagged topic for it, because the list is Pinterest's. That makes tagged topics more useful, since every one you add is a category Pinterest actually uses to organize content and audiences.

How to pick tagged topics

Start specific. The list contains both broad interests and narrow ones. A pin about a crochet baby blanket should be tagged with the narrow topics about crochet and baby blankets first. Broad topics about crafts or babies can fill remaining slots, but they carry less information.

Match the pin, not the account. Each pin is tagged on its own. A food blog's dessert pin gets dessert topics; its meal prep pin gets meal prep topics. Tagging every pin with the same ten topics turns the field into noise.

Use the words from your title. If the title says "slow cooker white chicken chili", search the tagged topics field for chili, slow cooker and chicken. Our tagged topics finder does this automatically: paste the title and description and it lists the matching topics from Pinterest's interest list, with the closest matches first.

Do not pad. Ten is a limit, not a target. Five accurate topics beat ten with half of them loose.

Check the board too. The board a pin sits on gives Pinterest another topic signal. If the board is named for the subject and the tagged topics agree with it, the pin's topic is unambiguous.

What to do with old pins full of hashtags

Leave most of them. The words still count as text, and Pinterest keeps distributing a pin for as long as people engage with it, so an old pin that still performs is not being held back by its hashtags.

Edit the exceptions. If an old pin is still getting impressions and its description is nothing but a wall of hashtags, rewrite it: one or two sentences with the main keyword first, within 800 characters, then add tagged topics. That gives Pinterest a readable topic and gives the viewer a reason to click.

If you schedule pins through a tool, check its defaults too. Some older tools still append a row of hashtags to every description. Turn that off, because it pushes the sentence Pinterest should read further down and adds nothing in return.

For everything new, skip hashtags entirely. Write the title and description as sentences, fill the alt text, choose tagged topics, and save the pin to the right board.

A hashtag description, rewritten

Here is the kind of description that was common advice a few years ago, and what it looks like once it is written for how Pinterest works now.

Before: "Chili night! #slowcooker #chili #whitechickenchili #easydinner #crockpot #dinnerideas #comfortfood #fallrecipes #weeknightdinner #recipe"

Pinterest reads ten words out of that, none of them in a sentence, and the viewer who opens the pin learns nothing about the recipe.

After: "Slow cooker white chicken chili that cooks itself while you are at work. Chicken, white beans, green chiles and a few pantry spices, with ten minutes of prep in the morning. A mild, creamy weeknight dinner that freezes well, and the recipe includes a stovetop version if you are short on time."

The same topics are present, now as phrases Pinterest can match to real searches such as "slow cooker white chicken chili" and "easy weeknight dinner". The first sentence carries the main keyword. The viewer knows what they will get. It is under 800 characters with room to spare. Then the tagged topics field carries the categories: the chili, slow cooker and weeknight dinner interests from Pinterest's list, chosen with the tagged topics finder.

Do the same for the title. "Chili night!" becomes "Slow Cooker White Chicken Chili (10 Minute Prep)", which is under 100 characters and says exactly what the pin is.

Hashtag myths, briefly

"Use 3 to 5 hashtags per pin." Old advice from a short period when Pinterest briefly made hashtags clickable. Not current.

"Hashtags make a pin show in more searches." The words do; the # symbol does nothing extra.

"Hashtags get a pin flagged as spam." A few hashtags do not. A description that is nothing but dozens of hashtags and repeated keywords looks like keyword stuffing, which Pinterest's community guidelines do treat as spam.

"Hashtags help on Pinterest because they help on Instagram." Different platform, different system. Pinterest is a search engine; the title and description are what it reads.

"Tagged topics are hashtags with a new name." No. They come from Pinterest's own list, they are invisible to viewers, and they are limited to 10. They describe the pin to Pinterest's categorization, not to people.

Where to go next

Frequently asked questions

Do hashtags work on Pinterest in 2026?: No, not as hashtags. They are not clickable, there is no hashtag feed, and Pinterest treats them as ordinary words in the description. The word after the # still counts as text, so a hashtag neither helps nor hurts much. It just takes up space that a proper sentence would use better.
What replaced hashtags on Pinterest?: Two things. Keywords in the pin's title, description, alt text and board, which Pinterest reads to decide what a pin is about. And tagged topics, a field where you choose up to 10 interests from Pinterest's own list when you create or edit a pin.
How many tagged topics should I add to a pin?: Add the ones that genuinely match, up to the limit of 10. Specific topics do more than general ones. A pin about a slow cooker chili recipe should be tagged with topics about chili and slow cooker meals before anything as broad as food.
Should I delete hashtags from my old pins?: Usually not. Editing hundreds of old pins is slow and the gain is small, since the words still count as text. Spend the time on new pins instead. Edit an old pin only when it is still getting traffic and its description is so full of hashtags that there is no real sentence in it.
Can I use hashtags in my Pinterest bio or board descriptions?: You can, but there is no reason to. Pinterest reads the words either way, and plain sentences read better to people. Use the space for a clear description of what the board or account is about.