Tags and titles
How Many Tags Can You Use on Etsy?
Etsy allows 13 tags, 20 characters each. What the help center allows, which characters fail, and how to spend the slots on phrases instead of single words.
Published 2 October 2026 · Last reviewed 2 October 2026 · 2 min read
On this page
You get 13 tags. Each one can be 20 characters. That is the whole limit, and it is written in How to Use Tags to Get Found in Search. The same article says a tag is a word or short phrase, with examples like “silver earrings” and “minimalist jewelry”. How to Create a Listing repeats the cap: add up to 13 tags that describe the item.
What fits in 20 characters
Count every letter, number, and space.
| Phrase | Characters | Fits? |
|---|---|---|
| linen napkin | 12 | Yes |
| stonewashed flax | 16 | Yes |
| wedding table linen | 20 | Yes, on the nose |
| handmade linen table napkin | 28 | No |
Etsy says that if the phrase you want is longer than 20 characters, you can still match those searches with more than one phrasal tag that contains the terms. Do not invent a special character to squeeze the long phrase in. Tags can include spaces, letters, and numbers. You may use ' and - inside a word or phrase. You cannot start a tag with those characters. Accented letters in Etsy’s published list are allowed. Source: the tags help article above, and the same advice in Keywords 101.
Spend slots on phrases
Keywords 101 is blunt: use all 13, use multi-word phrases, and add variety. “Custom bracelet” is stronger than “custom” plus “bracelet”, and it frees a slot. Repeating the title in every tag does not create 13 chances. It creates one chance written 13 times.
Tags are where Etsy says to put language that has no attribute, including aspirational or buyer-minded terms such as “gift for her”. If the category already has a color attribute, set the attribute and use the tag for a phrase the attribute cannot express.
How to edit them
On Etsy.com: Shop Manager, Listings, open the listing, Tags, type the words, Add. Remove a tag with the X. The Seller app path is Listings, the listing, Details, Tags. Both paths are in the help article. Etsy also describes bulk tag edits from Shop Manager and a quick edit tool in Keywords 101. I am not going to restate click-paths that change; use the help article if the button has moved.
A 13-tag set for a linen napkin
These are examples of shape, not a claim that any of them “rank”:
- linen napkin
- flax napkin
- cloth napkin
- wedding napkin
- table linen
- stonewashed flax
- dinner napkin
- natural linen
- reusable napkin
- hostess gift
- neutral table
- set of four
- everyday linen
Check the character count on “stonewashed flax” and “wedding napkin” yourself before you publish. Then run the listing through the title rules so the title and the tags are not copies of each other.