Pattern

Regex for Instagram handle

Instagram username — letters, digits, dots, underscores.

The Instagram handle regex is ^@?[a-zA-Z0-9._]{1,30}$ — copy it below, or open it in the explainer for a token-by-token breakdown.

The pattern

^@?[a-zA-Z0-9._]{1,30}$

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What it matches

@instagram
user.name
user_123
a
natgeo

What it doesn't match

user-name
toolongtoolongtoolongtoolongextra
user space

Notes & gotchas

Instagram usernames are up to 30 characters: letters, digits, periods, underscores. Can't start/end with period or have consecutive periods (not enforced in this regex).

Code in your language

Use the explainer's Code tab to generate ready-to-paste snippets in JavaScript, Python, Java, .NET, Go, Ruby, and PHP for this pattern.

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Token-by-token breakdown

Every part of the pattern, left to right:

Token	Meaning
`^`	start of string (or line in multiline mode)
`@?`	optional (zero or one): the literal “@”
`[a-zA-Z0-9._]{1,30}`	between 1 and 30 times: any of: lowercase letters, uppercase letters, digits, “.”, “_”
`$`	end of string (or line in multiline mode)

About this pattern

Identifying and validating user identity (names, contact info, IDs) is one of the most common reasons developers reach for regex. The pattern below handles the format check; for full validation always confirm against a source of truth (database, API, or document).

Quick usage in different languages

This exact pattern — with the correct escaping and idioms for each language:

JavaScript: /^@?[a-zA-Z0-9._]{1,30}$/.test(value)
Python: re.match(r"^@?[a-zA-Z0-9._]{1,30}$", value)
Java: Pattern.compile("^@?[a-zA-Z0-9._]{1,30}$").matcher(value).matches()
C# / .NET: Regex.IsMatch(value, @"^@?[a-zA-Z0-9._]{1,30}$")
Go: regexp.MustCompile(`^@?[a-zA-Z0-9._]{1,30}$`).MatchString(value)
Ruby: /^@?[a-zA-Z0-9._]{1,30}$/.match?(value)
PHP: preg_match('~^@?[a-zA-Z0-9._]{1,30}$~', $value)

The explainer’s Code tab regenerates these for any pattern you paste, and the downloadable cheat sheet bundles the breakdown, all seven snippets, and the pitfalls below onto one printable page.

Common pitfalls

Anchored to the whole string. This pattern uses ^ and $, so it requires the entire input to match. To find it inside a longer text, drop the anchors and use the global (g) flag.
ASCII letters only. [a-zA-Z] excludes accented and non-Latin letters (é, ü, ß, ñ, and non-Latin scripts). For international input use Unicode properties like \p{L} with the u flag.
Validate beyond format. Matching the format doesn't guarantee the value is real. Confirm the instagram handle against a source of truth (database, API, or checksum) where it matters.

Related patterns

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