Ad Blocker Usage Statistics 2026: Users, Rates by Country and Tracking Impact

How many people use ad blockers in 2026?

An estimated 1.1 billion people used ad blockers in the fourth quarter of 2025, according to eyeo's 2026 Ad-Blocking Report. A separate GWI survey puts the share of internet users aged 16 and over who use an ad blocker at least some of the time at 29.5% in the second quarter of 2025.

Those two numbers answer different questions, so this page keeps them apart. Every figure below links to the publication it came from in Sources and methodology, and the date at the top shows when we last re-checked each one.

Headline ad blocker statistics

eyeo is the company behind Adblock Plus and the Acceptable Ads program, so its user counts are a vendor estimate. eyeo defines an ad-blocking user as someone who took explicit action to use a product with ad blocking as a feature, such as an extension, browser, app, VPN or DNS service.

Is ad blocking growing or shrinking?

Both, depending on what you measure. The number of ad-blocking users grew 13% since 2023 to 1.1 billion, about 4.6 times the 240 million eyeo shows for 2014. Over the same years the share of internet users who block ads has fallen, because the internet population grew faster than the number of blockers.

Ad-blocking users over time

These are the values annotated on the chart on page 3 of eyeo's 2026 report, so each marks a point on the curve rather than a year-end audit. The 2023 value matches eyeo's 2023 report.

Ad-blocking rate over time

The rate is the share of users who block ads, and it moves differently from the count.

GWI's survey shows the same direction over a shorter window.

GWI added audiences aged 65 and over from Q1 2024, so the first three quarters are not strictly comparable with the rest. Across the full period the rate fell 3.3 points.

Do 1.1 billion ad-block users equal 30% of the internet?

No. On a base of 6.04 billion people online, 1.1 billion users is 18.2%, not 30%. eyeo's foreword says its 1.1 billion cohort represents 30% of the total internet population, and we could not reconcile that statement with the report's own user count.

The 30% figure is better read as the survey result it matches: GWI's 29.5%. Applied to 6.04 billion internet users it implies roughly 1.8 billion people, though GWI's base is people aged 16 and over, so treat that as an approximation.

For your own reporting, cite the count and the rate separately and name the source of each. For planning, neither beats the blocked share of your own traffic, which you can measure directly.

Which ad blockers are growing: desktop or mobile?

Mobile. In Q4 2025 there were 629 million mobile ad-blocking users against 448 million on desktop, so mobile holds 58.4% of the total.

eyeo reports that ad-blocking users in low- and middle-income countries grew 23% since 2023 while higher-income countries fell 14%, and that most mobile blockers sit in low- and middle-income countries. It attributes this to users saving data costs and speeding up slow networks, and notes that more browsers in higher-income countries now ship ad blocking as a default feature.

Which countries have the highest ad blocker usage?

Indonesia, in both datasets we compared. GWI measured 40.1% of internet users aged 16+ in Q2 2025 and eyeo lists 41%; at the other end Ghana is at 9.2% and 9%, with Japan (16.3%) and South Korea (17.5%) also below 20%.

Among large advertising markets, GWI's Q2 2025 rates are Canada 33.0%, the United States 32.5%, Germany 31.5%, France 29.3%, the United Kingdom 28.5%, Australia 28.2%, India 24.5% and Japan 16.3%.

How do two country datasets compare?

We transcribed both country tables and compared the 54 countries they share. eyeo's table header credits GWI's Consumer Insights Platform, while its methodology page describes Blockthrough bait-URL detection for the rate table, so we cannot say which applies. Because the likely origin is shared, agreement here is a consistency check rather than independent confirmation.

• The average gap between the two is 1.5 percentage points, and 40 of 54 countries are within 2 points.
• The correlation across countries is 0.93.
• The largest outlier is Morocco: 28.0% in GWI against 17% in eyeo.
• The unweighted mean of all 54 countries is 28.5% (GWI) and 28.6% (eyeo). This is not a population-weighted global rate.
• eyeo publishes whole percentages, so gaps below 0.5 points are rounding.

Ad blocker usage by country: full table

Older US, UK and German data by device

The most recent device-level split by country we found is the 2020 AudienceProject study. It is self-reported and six years old, so use it for the relative pattern rather than the levels.

In all three markets, the computer rate was about 2.4 to 2.5 times the mobile rate. These 2020 survey answers use a different method and year than the 2025 tables above, so do not compare the levels.

Who uses ad blockers?

Men use ad blockers more than women in every age group GWI reports. The gap runs from 6.2 to 9.4 percentage points and averages 7.6.

Source: GWI, Q2 2025, via DataReportal. Both genders block most between ages 25 and 44 and least between 55 and 64: men peak at 34.5% and women at 28.3%, while women aged 55 to 64 are lowest at 21.4%. Users aged 16 to 24 are not the heaviest blockers in this dataset. The 65+ group is not available in all countries, so treat it as less comparable.

Older articles, including an earlier version of this one, quote men at 49% and women at 33%. That is a 2020 AudienceProject result for the United States only. It is not a global figure.

Why do people use ad blockers?

Intrusive advertising comes first. Of internet users who block ads at least some of the time, 63.5% say there are too many ads, and 42.4% say they do it to protect their privacy.

Respondents could pick more than one reason, so the shares add to more than 100%. The privacy and data-collection answers matter most for advertisers: they describe people who also want tracking scripts blocked, not only ads.

How do ad blockers affect conversion tracking?

They cancel network requests that match filter-list rules, and the ad platforms' tracking scripts are on those lists. A visitor whose blocker applies the rule never loads the script, so the conversion event is never sent, even when the purchase is real.

Which tracking scripts do EasyList and EasyPrivacy block?

We searched the live lists on October 7, 2026 (EasyList build 202610070349, EasyPrivacy build 202610070341) for the endpoints each platform's browser tag uses.

We found no rule for graph.facebook.com, the endpoint a Meta server-side integration calls, in either list. That is expected: those requests leave your server, not the visitor's browser, so a browser extension never sees them.

Do ad blockers enable these lists by default?

It depends on the blocker. The split matters because the Meta, Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, TikTok, Snap, Pinterest and Microsoft endpoints above are on EasyPrivacy, not EasyList.

Adblock Plus also states that it provides "certain levels of tracking and malware protection by default" without naming the list, so we cannot say exactly which of the endpoints above it blocks out of the box. We did not verify the defaults of other blockers, so the table lists only these two. The practical point holds regardless: whether a visitor's pixel is blocked depends on which lists their blocker runs, which is why your own measured rate is more reliable than any published average.

What do blocked pixels do to reported CPA?

If blockers hide a share h of your conversions from the ad pixel, your reported CPA is the real CPA divided by (1 − h). At 30% hidden, reported CPA looks 42.9% higher than reality.

A worked example with illustrative numbers: you spend $50,000 and get 1,000 real conversions at an $85 order value, so the real CPA is $50.00 and the real ROAS is 1.70. If the pixel misses 30% of them, the platform sees 700 conversions, a CPA of $71.43 and a ROAS of 1.19. A campaign that is profitable looks marginal.

Two caveats keep this honest. The share of visitors with a blocker is not automatically the share of conversions hidden: it depends on which lists the blocker runs, and on whether blocking visitors buy at the same rate as everyone else. And blockers are only one cause of lost conversions; browser tracking restrictions and consent choices add to the gap. Our free ad blocker loss calculator lets you test your own numbers.

How much revenue do ad blockers cost publishers?

eyeo forecast in 2023 that ad blocking would cost publishers $54 billion in 2024, about 8% of the $695 billion global digital ad spend it used from eMarketer. The same report estimated $116 billion of losses if non-intrusive ad programs like Acceptable Ads did not exist.

That is a forecast published by a vendor, not a measured loss, and we found no newer figure in eyeo's 2026 report. Older pages that state "$50-54 billion annually" present the 2024 forecast as an ongoing fact. For an advertiser the more direct cost is the one above: conversions that never reach the ad platform.

What can advertisers do about ad blockers?

Measure your own blocked share first, then take the browser out of the delivery path for the events that matter. A server-side integration sends the conversion from your server to the ad platform, so a blocker running in the visitor's browser cannot cancel it.

1. Compare orders in your store or CRM with conversions each platform reports for the same period. The gap is your combined loss from blockers, browser restrictions and consent.
2. Send purchase and lead events from the server through Meta's Conversions API, Google Enhanced Conversions and the TikTok Events API. The background is in our guide to server-side tracking.
3. Deduplicate browser and server events with a shared event ID so a conversion is not counted twice.
4. Check Event Match Quality so the server events carry enough customer data to match.
5. Recalculate true ROAS before cutting spend on a channel that looked weak.

Server-side delivery does not recover every lost conversion. The event still needs the order to be known to your server and enough identifiers to match it to an ad click. Published uplift figures, and how much weight each deserves, are in our server-side tracking benchmark report. SignalBridge is built for this step.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many people use ad blockers in 2026?

An estimated 1.1 billion people used ad blockers in Q4 2025 (eyeo), made up of 448 million desktop and 629 million mobile users. A GWI survey separately finds that 29.5% of internet users aged 16 and over use an ad blocker at least some of the time.

What percentage of internet users use ad blockers?

Roughly 30%. GWI measured 29.5% in Q2 2025 and eyeo reports a 30.0% global rate for 2025. Both figures have fallen from about 33-37% in 2021-2023 as the internet population grew faster than the number of blockers.

Which country has the highest ad blocker usage?

Indonesia, at 40.1% of internet users aged 16+ (GWI, Q2 2025); eyeo lists 41%. Ghana is lowest at 9.2%, and Japan (16.3%) and South Korea (17.5%) are also below 20%.

Do more men or women use ad blockers?

Men. In every GWI age group the male rate is 6.2 to 9.4 points higher than the female rate, and 25-to-44-year-old men are highest at 34.5%.

Do ad blockers block the Facebook Pixel and Google Analytics?

Often, but it depends on the blocker's filter lists. EasyPrivacy has rules for the Meta Pixel, Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics, and uBlock Origin enables EasyPrivacy by default, while Adblock Plus does not name it among its default lists.

Can server-side tracking bypass ad blockers?

For the conversion event itself, yes. The event is sent from your server to the ad platform, so a browser extension never sees the request. It does not recover conversions your server cannot match to an ad click.

How much do ad blockers cost advertisers?

It depends on the share of conversions your pixel misses. If 30% are hidden, your reported CPA is about 42.9% higher than the real one and your reported ROAS about 30% lower.

Sources and methodology

Primary sources

• eyeo, 2026 Ad-Blocking Report (May 2026): user counts and history (pp. 3-6), 2021-2025 rate series and country table (p. 7), definitions and methodology (p. 13).
• eyeo, 2023 Ad-Filtering Report press release (November 20, 2023): 912M users in Q2 2023 and the $54 billion 2024 forecast.
• We Are Social, Meltwater and Kepios, Digital 2026 Global Overview Report (October 2025 edition): GWI ad-blocker data on pp. 670-672, and 6.04 billion internet users on p. 10. The DataReportal report page hosts the same series.
• AudienceProject, Attitude towards advertising and use of ad blocking (2020): device-level rates, p. 26.
• EasyList and EasyPrivacy: filter rules, checked October 7, 2026.
• uBlock Origin asset manifest: default-enabled lists.
• Adblock Plus, About: default filter lists.

How we verified the figures

• Each figure was read from the original publication, not from a page that repeated it. The two country tables were transcribed independently and compared; the rendered report pages were checked against the extracted text.
• Calculated values are marked as such and use only the inputs shown. Mobile share is 629 ÷ (629 + 448). The CPA lookup is h ÷ (1 − h). The 18.2% share is 1.1 billion ÷ 6.04 billion.
• Filter rules were searched in the lists as published on the verification date. Lists change daily, so re-run the search before relying on a rule.

Limitations

• eyeo makes Adblock Plus and runs Acceptable Ads. Its counts are estimates by a party with an interest in the topic.
• GWI figures are self-reported survey answers about use "for at least some of their online activities", not measured detection.
• The Blockthrough measurement most often quoted for a measured rate, an average of 21% across more than 10 billion page views, comes from a 2022 report on earlier traffic. We did not find a newer published measured average.
• The AudienceProject device split is from 2020.

Corrections and updates

• October 7, 2026: Rebuilt this page from primary sources. Changes from the earlier version:
  • The desktop and mobile split was shown as 43% and 57%. The correct split of 448M and 629M is 41.6% and 58.4%.
  • The "ads blocked per second" figure and the industry-vertical, age-band and "men 49%, women 33%" tables could not be traced to a published source and were removed. Age and gender now use GWI Q2 2025 data.
  • The US and UK device rates were 2020 survey results shown without their year, and "Germany up to 49%" came from a secondary source. Device rates are now labelled with year and method, and country rates use 2025 data.
  • The $50-54 billion revenue figure is now described as eyeo's 2023 forecast for 2024.
  • The 2022 value of 850 million attributed to Statista was replaced with the values on eyeo's own chart.
  • Unsourced server-side "recovery" percentages were removed from this page. See the benchmark report for sourced figures.