Instagram will require employees to return to the office five days a week starting early next year, becoming the latest major tech company to crack down on remote work.
In an internal memo titled “Building a Winning Culture in 2026,” Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri told employees that full-time office attendance would be mandatory for U.S.-based employees starting February 2, 2026. He argued that teams in the company’s New York office were already benefiting from a stronger culture of presence, which he said was associated with greater creativity, dynamism and collaboration.
Mosseri, who has led Instagram since 2018, said: “Being nimble and creative is as important as strategy in making progress after a difficult 2025. We have made good progress this year, but we need to do more if we want to lead.”
The move makes Instagram stricter than its parent company Meta. While Meta requires most employees at Facebook and WhatsApp to be on site three days a week, Instagram is free to set its own rules, according to the company.
“We still have full-time remote work, and those eligible can apply,” a Meta spokesperson said. “Department leaders can determine what works best for their teams. The Instagram policy applies only to Instagram, not company-wide.”
Other major tech companies have rolled back their flexible work policies. Amazon reintroduced full-time office work earlier this year, and Elon Musk has required X (formerly Twitter) employees to work fully on-site since late 2022. Google and most of Silicon Valley now follow a hybrid three-day office model.
In addition to the back-to-office arrangement, Mosseri announced new initiatives aimed at reducing bureaucracy and accelerating product development. Instagram will now cancel all recurring meetings every six months and only reinstate those that are “absolutely necessary”.
He urged employees to prioritize product prototypes over presentations, writing, “I want you to focus most of your time on building great products, not on preparing for meetings.”
The shakeup comes as Instagram tries to sharpen its identity. Mosseri said he wanted Instagram to “stand for creativity” and positioned Meta’s Threads app as a space for “perspectives.”
Despite stricter internal policies, Meta continues to produce solid results. In the latest quarterly results, revenue rose 26 percent year-on-year to $51.2 billion, while average daily users across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads reached 3.54 billion – an increase of 8 percent year-on-year.
Instagram itself employs around 20,000 people in Meta’s global workforce.
