TikTok is now available for Android users in the US, despite ongoing ban issue

TikTok has announced that users can now download the Android version of the app directly from its own website in the US. In a post on X, TikTok shared on Friday (Feb. 7) that Android users in the United States can now download or update the app straight from TikTok’s website. This comes after Google removed it from the Play Store last month due to a US ban.

The app briefly went offline on January 19, just before the law kicked in unless its parent company, ByteDance, sells it to a US-based owner. Under this law, both Apple and Google were required to remove TikTok from their app stores or face a $5,000 fine for every US user who downloaded it. While TikTok quickly restored access to its service within a day, the app is still missing from both the Google Play Store and Apple App Store in the country.

When President Donald Trump took office, he signed an executive order that put a 75-day pause on the ban, giving ByteDance until April to strike a deal. Trump has reportedly tasked Vice President J.D. Vance with handling negotiations for a potential sale before the deadline. While ByteDance has repeatedly said it has no plans to sell TikTok, one of its biggest investors recently suggested that a deal might be “in everybody’s interest.”

Plenty of interested buyers have already come forward, including Perplexity AI and YouTube star MrBeast.

Some users have stated on X that they’ve managed to download the app on their phones.

I'm an android user so I successfully just sideloaded the TikTok app back on my phone pic.twitter.com/Hhulynw0mb

— riya