Instagram Reels and Stories safe zones: see what the app covers

Instagram Reels ads: 14% top, 35% bottom, 6% each side

Meta states the figures twice for this placement, and the two sentences do not match in strength. The video page says “at least”, the image page says “roughly”:

“Consider leaving at least 14% of the top, 35% of the bottom and 6% on each side of your asset free from text, logos or other important creative elements.”

“Consider leaving roughly 14% of the top, 35% of the bottom and 6% on each side of your asset free from text, logos or other key creative elements to avoid cropping key elements or covering them with the profile icon or call to action.”

Only the image page names what does the covering: the profile icon and the call to action. Meta never says which element takes which part of the reserved 35%, so any component-by-component breakdown you find elsewhere was invented. The wording difference is one of the disagreements listed further down.

Instagram Stories ads: the same 14 / 35 / 6

The Stories video and image pages carry the identical sentence, in the “roughly” form quoted above. Two things to know about this placement: the Ads Guide slug is singular, instagram-story, and the plural form 404s; and Meta's Help Centre gives the same placement a different resolution to the Ads Guide, which is covered further down.

What happens on screens taller than 9:16

Most platforms stay silent on tall phone screens. Meta does not, and the answer affects whether your edges survive:

“On devices with screens that are taller than the 9:16 aspect ratio, we may either zoom the creative to better fill the whole screen (which can crop areas outside the safe zone), or show the creative in its original 9:16 aspect ratio and use a black background to fill any extra space.”

These figures are for ads, not for organic posts

Instagram publishes no safe zone for organic Reels, and its Stories help article carries no dimensions, resolution, duration or safe zone at all. The 14 / 35 / 6 figures exist only in Meta's advertising documentation, and most third-party pages mix the two up. What Instagram does publish for organic is in the table below.