Measured from the platform's own overlay, or labeled as a guide
Instagram Reels safe zone
Short answer
Meta publishes Instagram Reels safe-zone figures in its ads guide: leave at least 14% of the top, 35% of the bottom and 6% of each side free of text, logos and key creative. On the 1080 x 1920 frame Instagram shares, those three percentages clear 269 px at the top, 672 px at the bottom and a 65 px strip down each edge.
Key takeaways
- These are Meta's own words on the Instagram Reels page of the Ads Guide, not a summary: "Consider leaving at least 14% of the top, 35% of the bottom, and 6% on each side of your asset free".
- Worked onto that frame, 14% of 1920 is 268.8 px and 6% of 1080 is 64.8 px, drawn here rounded to 269 and to 65.
- The bottom band is two and a half times the height of the top one, because the caption row and the action stack sit there.
- The Meta pages Koldflux read on 2026-10-05 carry no overlay image for Reels, where the TikTok In-Feed help page links one, so here there is a sentence to work from and no picture to measure.
- Meta publishes this for Reels ads. The organic Reels player is not covered by the ads guide, and this page says so rather than implying the numbers are universal.
The overlay
Instagram Reels is one surface with one set of published margins. The overlay below is generated from the three percentages on Meta's Instagram Reels page, not from a summary of them and not from the Facebook Reels page.
Official guidance (approximate) · Sales Video Ad Specs on Instagram Reels (Meta Ads Guide) · Last checked 2026-10-05
On a 1080×1920 frame, leave the top 269 px, the bottom 672 px, the left 65 px and the right 65 px free of text and faces.
Meta publishes this for Reels ads; organic Reels can differ.
Surfaces on this platform
One surface here, and it is verified. The Instagram feed is a different frame with no published figure and has its own page, linked below.
Reel
VERIFIED · Sales Video Ad Specs on Instagram Reels (Meta Ads Guide) publishes these figures, and Koldflux checked them on 2026-10-05. The download carries the same numbers.
- Top
- 14% · 269 px
- Bottom
- 35% · 672 px
- Left
- 6% · 65 px
- Right
- 6% · 65 px
Source: Sales Video Ad Specs on Instagram Reels (Meta Ads Guide). Checked 2026-10-05.
What Meta published, and where the document stops
The Instagram Reels video ad specifications in the Meta Ads Guide carry a sentence that needs no interpretation: "Consider leaving at least 14% of the top, 35% of the bottom, and 6% on each side of your asset free from text, logos, or other important creative elements."
That sentence is the whole of the published guidance for this surface. It gives three numbers and one adjective, "at least", which makes it a floor rather than a crop. It does not say what occupies the margins, and it does not come with a picture that could be measured the way TikTok's overlay can.
Meta has a general safe-zone article that covers placements including Reels. The pages Koldflux read on 2026-10-05 no longer carry numbers in it, which is why this page cites the placement page rather than the general one.
That difference in evidence matters when a number is wrong. A percentage measured off an official overlay can be checked by anyone with a ruler, and TikTok's page here does that. A percentage copied out of a sentence can only be checked by reading the sentence again.
What the margins mean in pixels
Percentages of a frame only become useful when you have a frame. At the 1080 x 1920 px that Instagram shares, 14% of the height is 268.8 px, shown here as 269; 35% of the height is exactly 672 px; and 6% of the width is 64.8 px, shown as 65.
What those margins leave measures 950 px across and 979 px down. In frame coordinates the box runs from x = 65 to x = 1015 and from y = 269 to y = 1248.
That box covers 930,050 px of a 2,073,600 px frame, or 44.85% of it. So a little under half of a vertical frame is usable, which is the arithmetic behind reading Meta's "at least" as a floor rather than as a target.
| Edge | Percent | Working | Pixels |
|---|---|---|---|
| Top | 14% | 1920 x 0.14 | 268.8, shown as 269 |
| Bottom | 35% | 1920 x 0.35 | 672 |
| Left | 6% | 1080 x 0.06 | 64.8, shown as 65 |
| Right | 6% | 1080 x 0.06 | 64.8, shown as 65 |
| Safe width | 88% | 1080 x 0.88 | 950 |
| Safe height | 51% | 1920 x 0.51 | 979 |
Computed from a 1080 x 1920 frame and the percentages Meta publishes.
Side percentages are of the width. Top and bottom percentages are of the height. Reading 6% as 6% of the height turns it into 115 px and draws a different overlay.
Why the bottom margin is two and a half times the top
The bottom 35% of a Reel is where the caption, the audio attribution and the action stack sit. Text placed there competes with interface a viewer has already decided to read, and the caption panel expands over exactly that band.
The 6% side margins are much smaller because a Reel plays full-screen with chrome at the edges and nothing reaching far into the frame horizontally. 65 px on each side of a 1080 px frame is a thin strip.
The rule that follows from the numbers rather than from taste: keep the subject inside the 950 x 979 px rectangle the overlay draws, and treat everything below y = 1248 as caption territory.
Instagram feed is a different frame, not a different margin
Instagram feed has its own entry in Koldflux's truth table and it is an approximate one: no official safe-zone figure was found for feed images. That page is at /tools/instagram-feed/safe-zone and is labeled accordingly.
The Reels margins do not transfer to a feed post in either direction. A 9:16 Reel and a 4:5 feed post are different frames carrying different interface, and a caption that clears the Reels bottom band has only solved part of a feed post.
Downloads
Reel
These are the figures Meta writes on the Instagram Reels placement page of its Ads Guide, carried here word for word rather than paraphrased. The download names that document and the date it was read.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Instagram Reels safe zone?
Meta's Instagram Reels page asks for at least 14% at the top, 35% at the bottom and 6% at each side kept free of text, logos and key creative. On 1080 x 1920 that is a 269 px top band, a 672 px bottom band and 65 px strips at both edges.
Is the Instagram Reels safe zone the same as Facebook Reels?
The numbers are identical, 14 / 35 / 6, because Meta publishes them on both placement pages. The wording is not. The Instagram page says "at least" and "important creative elements" and does not say what occupies the margins; the Facebook page says "roughly" and names the profile icon and the call to action.
Does the Instagram Reels safe zone apply to organic reels?
Meta publishes these figures for Reels ads. The organic Reels player is not addressed by the ads guide, and this page labels the numbers as ad guidance rather than presenting them as an organic crop.
How do I use the Instagram Reels overlay?
Download it and drop it under your 1080 x 1920 timeline at the same size. Keep the subject inside the box it draws, which measures 950 by 979 px and sits from x = 65 to 1015 and from y = 269 to 1248.
What is the Instagram feed safe zone?
No official figure was found for the feed surface in the pages Koldflux read, so that page is labeled approximate and offers a recorded envelope rather than a published number. It is a separate page from this one.
Sources
- Meta Ads Guide: Sales Video Ad Specs on Instagram Reels (checked 2026-10-05)
The Instagram Reels placement page states these for Reels ads. It says nothing about an organic Reel, so the page treats the figures as ad guidance instead of an organic crop boundary.