More people than ever have chosen VRChat to ring in the new year.
VRChat broke concurrent user records in various time zones as the year changed from 2025 to 2026, according to figures posted on social media by community leaders.
From 11:59 PM Eastern Time to 12:00 AM Pacific Time on December 31st to 12:00 AM on January 1st, VRChat’s servers supported approximately 150,000 people to be online at the same time in different spaces as we celebrated the new year across the United States.
Tupper, VRChat’s longtime community director, posted on Bluesky that Japan saw surprisingly high peaks over the holidays, but did not provide specific numbers. It also shows specific peak values for concurrently connected users across the four time zones that divide the United States.
East: 147226 Central: 148886 Mountains: 141184 Pacific: 127708
While VRChat does not always detail how many users access its service with a headset and a traditional flat interface at any given time, it generally states that well over half of its user base accesses VRChat with a headset, and these numbers help lay the foundation for a narrative around VR headset usage. Tupper noted that VRChat usage on a recent “typical weekend” has been around “120 to 125,000 CCU at peak times.”
It will be interesting to see where VRChat’s peak numbers land on January 1, 2027, as Bigscreen Beyond 2 continues to scale production of its ultra-light headset design in 2026, and Valve also prepares to sell its lightweight modular Steam Frame.
If you were on VRChat on New Year’s Eve, please share the name of the space you chose to celebrate the new year in the comments below. And for those outside of VR who may not yet understand the whole trend here, did the people who stood frozen under the lights in New York’s Times Square for most of New Year’s Eve have a better time than those who lounged at home wearing Bigscreen Beyond 2 to access VRChat?
The article was updated on January 12, 2026 to detail the number of VRChat users using headsets.
