European creator census 2026:
where influencers are, and who they are

What the census covers

The census covers ten European markets and three platforms. It looks at accounts with at least 10,000 followers and attaches each one to the country where more than 30% of its audience lives. That gives a picture of the creators a brand can really use to reach people in a given country, wherever the creator is based.

Three spin-off analyses go deeper on single questions: how many influencers there are in France, the gender gap by follower tier and TikTok versus Instagram by country.

Creator density: how many influencers per country

Raw counts mostly reflect the size of a country. Creator density, the number of creator accounts per 100,000 inhabitants, shows how developed each market is. On Instagram, the gap between the densest market and the least dense is about four to one.

Source: TANKE internal data, Instagram analyses and B2B data providers including Kolsquare and onsocial.ai. Data collected in November 2026.

Southern Europe leads on Instagram: Italy, Spain and Portugal all sit well above the ten-market average of 107. Germany is the surprise, with 66 Instagram creators per 100,000 inhabitants, well under half of Italy’s level. France is average on Instagram but first on TikTok (140) and on YouTube (18.2, about twice the average).

TikTok or Instagram: each market has a dominant platform

Across the ten markets there are 85 TikTok creators for every 100 Instagram creators. That average hides two groups of countries.

Source: TANKE internal data, Instagram analyses and B2B data providers including Kolsquare and onsocial.ai. Data collected in November 2026.

Romania, France and Germany are TikTok-first. The United Kingdom and Poland are close to balance. Italy, Greece, the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal remain Instagram-first, with Portugal at 39 TikTok creators per 100 on Instagram. The United States sits at 51, in the Instagram-first group. The full analysis is in TikTok vs Instagram creators by country.

The creator pyramid: how many reach each follower tier

Follower tiers form a steep pyramid on Instagram and TikTok. About three quarters of creators above 10k followers stay under 50k, and fewer than one in a hundred passes one million. YouTube is different: channels above 100k subscribers make up 41% of the channels counted.

Source: TANKE internal data, Instagram analyses and B2B data providers including Kolsquare and onsocial.ai. Data collected in November 2026.

For a brand, this is the supply side of the market. Micro-influencers (10k to 100k) represent 86% of the available Instagram creators, so campaigns built on that tier have a deep pool to select from. Above one million followers the pool is 0.7% of accounts, which explains both the prices and the booking delays at the top.

Gender: women lead the small tiers, men the top

Women are the majority of creators on Instagram and TikTok up to 500k followers. Above that, the share falls under parity on both platforms. YouTube is male-dominated at every tier.

Source: TANKE internal data, Instagram analyses and B2B data providers including Kolsquare and onsocial.ai. Data collected in November 2026.

The pattern holds in every large market. On Instagram, the share of women drops by 22 points in France between the smallest tier and the top one, by 13 points in Italy and by 11 points in Spain. The country detail and the comparison with the United States are in the gender gap in influencer marketing.

Europe compared with the United States

The United States is the reference market for most global influencer statistics, so it is a useful benchmark. Three differences stand out.

• More large accounts. 1.9% of American Instagram creators have more than one million followers, against 0.7% in Europe. An English-speaking audience is simply larger.
• A smaller gender gap at the top. Above one million followers on Instagram, women are 48% of American creators and 42% of European ones.
• A similar density. With 167 Instagram creators per 100,000 inhabitants, the United States is at the level of Italy, not ahead of it.

What it means for brands

Three practical points follow from the census.

• Plan the platform mix per country. A plan that puts TikTok first works in France and Germany. The same plan in Spain or Portugal would ignore where most creators are.
• Expect a thinner pool in some markets. In Germany or the Netherlands, there are fewer creators per inhabitant, so selection takes longer and the best profiles are booked earlier.
• Check the gender mix of top-tier line-ups. A campaign that only books accounts above one million followers will lean male by default, even in categories where the audience is mostly female.

Planning a campaign across several European markets? Talk to the TANKE team about creator selection country by country.

Methodology and source

The census counts creator accounts with at least 10,000 followers on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. An account is attached to a country when more than 30% of its audience is located there. We chose 30% instead of a simple majority because large accounts tend to have more international audiences, and a 50% rule would remove many of them.

• Markets: the ten largest European creator markets in the data (Italy, United Kingdom, France, Spain, Germany, Poland, Netherlands, Portugal, Greece, Romania), with the United States as a benchmark. Smaller markets were left out because their top tiers hold too few accounts to give stable shares.
• Sample: close to 1.8 million account records across the eleven markets. An account with a split audience can count in two countries, so country figures should not be added up.
• Gender: shares are calculated on accounts with an identified gender (individual creators, not brands or media), which is 88% of Instagram accounts, 98% on TikTok and 81% on YouTube.
• Tiers: accounts above 5 million followers are merged into the “1M and more” tier. Accounts under 10,000 followers are excluded, because coverage of very small accounts varies too much from one country to the next.
• Reading the figures: the data is a large sample of each market, not an official register. Shares and ratios are more robust than absolute counts, which is why this study reports percentages first. Population figures are rounded 2025 estimates.

Source: TANKE internal data, Instagram analyses and B2B data providers including Kolsquare and onsocial.ai. Data collected in November 2026.

Frequently asked questions