The Most-Viewed YouTube Videos of All Time (2026)

The most-viewed YouTube videos reach a scale little else online matches — the leader has been watched more times than there are people on Earth, many times over. The ranking is dominated by two genres: children's nursery rhymes and global music hits. Below is the current top 20 with verified view counts, the milestones that shaped the list, and what the list shows about how views compound on YouTube.

All view counts are as of April 19, 2026, per Wikipedia's continuously-updated List of most-viewed YouTube videos, which tracks live counters. Figures grow daily and are rounded to the nearest 0.01 billion.

Quick answer

The most-viewed YouTube video of all time is "Baby Shark Dance" by Pinkfong, with about 16.87 billion views (as of April 2026) — roughly double the second-place video. The most-viewed conventional music video is "Despacito" by Luis Fonsi (~9.00 billion). As of April 2026, 30 videos have passed 4 billion views and 14 have passed 5 billion. The first video ever to reach 1 billion was Psy's "Gangnam Style," in December 2012.

The 20 most-viewed YouTube videos of all time

#	Video	Channel / uploader	Views (billions)	Year
1	Baby Shark Dance	Pinkfong	16.87	2016
2	Despacito	Luis Fonsi	9.00	2017
3	Wheels on the Bus	Cocomelon	8.81	2018
4	Bath Song	Cocomelon	7.44	2018
5	Johny Johny Yes Papa	LooLoo Kids	7.18	2016
6	See You Again	Wiz Khalifa ft. Charlie Puth	6.97	2015
7	Phonics Song with Two Words	ChuChu TV	6.94	2014
8	Shape of You	Ed Sheeran	6.70	2017
9	Gangnam Style	Psy	5.91	2012
10	Axel F	Crazy Frog	5.86	2009
11	Uptown Funk	Mark Ronson ft. Bruno Mars	5.79	2014
12	Learning Colors – Colorful Eggs on a Farm	Miroshka TV	5.45	2018
13	Dame Tu Cosita	Ultra Records	5.44	2018
14	Shree Hanuman Chalisa	T-Series Bhakti Sagar	5.35	2011
15	Baa Baa Black Sheep	Cocomelon	4.79	2018
16	Masha and the Bear – Recipe for Disaster	Get Movies	4.67	2012
17	Lakdi Ki Kathi	Jingle Toons	4.58	2018
18	Temu's Big Game Ad	Temu	4.53	2024
19	Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)	Shakira	4.50	2010
20	Humpty the Train on a Fruits Ride	Kiddiestv Hindi	4.41	2018

Source: Wikipedia — List of most-viewed YouTube videos (as of April 19, 2026).

What the list tells you

A few patterns explain why these videos sit at the top:

• Kids' content dominates. Nursery rhymes and learning songs (Pinkfong, Cocomelon, ChuChu TV, LooLoo Kids) fill most of the top 20. Young children rewatch the same video on loop, and autoplay keeps it running — so the same child generates new views again and again.
• Music is the other engine. Despacito, See You Again, Shape of You, Uptown Funk, and Gangnam Style show how a global hit turns radio and streaming ubiquity into repeat YouTube plays.
• Age compounds. Most of the list was uploaded between 2009 and 2018. View counts accumulate for years, so older videos that never stopped being watched keep climbing — the one exception here is the 2024 Temu ad, which bought its way up fast.
• The top is lopsided. "Baby Shark Dance" (16.87B) has nearly double the views of #2, an unusually wide gap for a #1.

Milestones in YouTube view history

• First to 1 billion: "Gangnam Style" (Psy), December 2012. In 2014 it also became the first video to pass roughly 2.15 billion views — the ceiling of YouTube's original 32-bit view counter — which prompted Google to rebuild the counter to hold larger numbers.
• The 4-billion-plus club: 30 videos have crossed 4 billion views as of April 2026; 14 of them are past 5 billion.
• The current leader: "Baby Shark Dance" has held #1 since late 2020, when it overtook "Despacito."

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