TikTok Reportedly Building a New App Version Before Its Us Sale

TikTok is building a new version of its popular app ahead of the planned sale of its US operations, according to a report by The Information. Users will eventually have to migrate to the new app, which is expected to launch on US app stores on September 5.

TikTok’s current app is set to remain operational until March 2026, although it will become unavailable on the US versions of the Google Play Store and Apple App Store.

The planned migration of the app’s 170 million US users comes as the US government nears finalizing the divestiture of TikTok’s US operations to US companies. Companies like Oracle have expressed a desire to buy the popular app, but so far, the Chinese government (which has to approve of any deal) hasn’t found favorable conditions for the app’s sale.

The potential sale has been under debate since 2024, when then-President Joe Biden signed the Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which explicitly mentioned TikTok and parent company ByteDance.

Under the act, TikTok would be permanently banned from the US or divest its Chinese ownership. The current US President, Donald Trump, has delayed the ban, which was initially expected to take effect on January 19, on three occasions through executive orders.

Since then, the US has proposed measures to facilitate the sale of the app, like reducing all tariffs on Chinese goods.

As it stands, the ban is set to take place on September 17, shortly after the release of the app’s new version. According to The Information’s confidential source, “the project to build a new version of TikTok is a massive engineering undertaking. And getting all of TikTok’s users in the US to move over to a new app, bringing their profiles with them, could pose technical issues in practice.”

It remains unclear whether the US government, potential investors, or ByteDance itself initiated the development of the new app version.