Dating App Cheating Statistics (2026)

Your partner has been spending more time on their phone lately. You noticed a notification flash across their screen before they quickly turned it face-down. A familiar knot forms in your stomach. You want answers, but you also want to know: how common is this, really?

Dating app cheating statistics paint a clear picture. Research shows that between 18% and 25% of people on Tinder are already in a committed relationship (Computers in Human Behavior, 2020, n=395). A YouGov Omnibus survey found that 7% of all dating app users have explicitly used them to cheat on a partner. And a HighSpeedInternet.com survey of 400 Americans revealed that one in four admitted to using dating apps while in a committed relationship.

These are not fringe behaviors. They are measurable, documented patterns backed by peer-reviewed research and large-scale surveys. This article compiles the most current and reliable data on dating app infidelity: who does it, how often, on which platforms, and what the research actually tells us about modern relationships.

Headline Statistics: Dating App Cheating by the Numbers

Before we break down the details, here are the core figures that define dating app infidelity in 2026. Every statistic below is sourced from published research or large-scale surveys.

Two things stand out immediately. First, the range of estimates is wide, because surveys define "cheating" differently and use different populations. Second, even the most conservative figures reveal that millions of people in committed relationships are active on dating platforms.

Key takeaway: If roughly 30% of U.S. adults have ever used a dating app (Pew Research Center, 2023, n=6,034), and 7% of those users have cheated through one, that represents millions of Americans who have used dating technology to pursue an affair.

How Many Dating App Users Are in Relationships?

This is the foundational question. Not every person in a relationship on a dating app is cheating. Some have open relationships. Some are separated. But the numbers are large enough to warrant attention.

The Research Breakdown

A widely cited study from 2015 by GlobalWebIndex surveyed 47,000 dating app users worldwide and found that 42% were not single. Of those, 30% were married and 12% were in a relationship. That study drew significant media coverage and raised early alarms about dating app use among committed individuals.

More recent academic research has refined those numbers. A 2020 study published in Computers in Human Behavior examined 395 Tinder users and found that 22.4% reported being in a committed relationship while actively using the app. The researchers noted this was consistent with a broader literature review showing 18% to 25% of dating app users are partnered.

A Spokeo survey of 1,158 U.S. adults in 2023 found a lower but still significant figure: 18.7% had signed up for a dating app while in a relationship. This may be a more accurate baseline for deliberate infidelity-related behavior, since it measures intentional sign-ups rather than simply maintaining an existing account.

Why Partnered People Stay on Apps

Not every coupled user is pursuing an affair. Research identifies several motivations:

• Entertainment and ego validation. The swiping mechanism itself is designed to be addictive. Some users report logging in for the dopamine hit of receiving matches, not to meet anyone.
• Keeping options open. The HighSpeedInternet.com survey found that men were almost twice as likely as women to report staying active on apps "just in case."
• Active infidelity. YouGov data from 2021 shows that 6% of dating app users are on them specifically to cheat, with men (9%) outpacing women (3%) by a three-to-one margin.
• Curiosity or inertia. Six percent of users in the HighSpeedInternet.com survey said they never delete their dating apps after entering a relationship.

The distinction between passive app retention and active cheating matters. But from a partner's perspective, the line between "keeping Tinder installed" and "seeking an affair" is often blurry, and the research suggests these behaviors exist on a spectrum rather than in separate categories.

Related: what percentage of people cheat

Which Dating Apps Are Used Most for Cheating?

Not all platforms carry the same risk profile. Some apps are built for casual encounters. One is designed specifically for affairs. Here is what the data tells us about which platforms cheaters gravitate toward.

Hinge’s "designed to be deleted" positioning attracts users who want discretion. If you need to check the platform, here is how to search for someone on Hinge.

App-by-App Breakdown

Tinder dominates the cheating conversation for a simple reason: it is the most widely used dating app in the United States, with 14% of all adults having used it at some point. Its swipe-based interface, emphasis on photos, and reputation for casual hookups make it the default choice for people seeking low-commitment connections. If you want to find out if your boyfriend is on Tinder, the statistical odds alone make it the first place to check.

Ashley Madison operates in a category of its own. With over 80 million registered users worldwide and roughly 15 million monthly active users, it is the largest platform explicitly designed for extramarital affairs. Internal data from 2024 shows that 44% of men and 39% of women on the platform have had actual physical affairs through it. The most active demographic is adults aged 30 to 50.

For a deeper look at the full range of platforms people use for infidelity, see our guide on apps cheaters use.

The Role of Messaging Apps

Cheating does not always start or stay on dating platforms. Research and investigation reports consistently flag these messaging apps as secondary tools for maintaining secret communication:

• Snapchat (disappearing messages)
• Telegram (secret chats with self-destruct timers)
• WhatsApp (end-to-end encryption)
• Kik (anonymous registration, no phone number required)

These apps allow cheaters to move conversations off dating platforms, where they are easier to discover, into encrypted channels that leave fewer traces. If you are watching for signs your husband is cheating on his phone, the presence of these apps alongside a dating profile is a significant red flag.

Demographic Breakdown: Who Cheats on Dating Apps?

Infidelity is not evenly distributed across the population. Age, gender, relationship length, education, and even political affiliation all correlate with different cheating rates. The most comprehensive demographic data comes from the General Social Survey (GSS), administered by NORC at the University of Chicago, and from the Institute for Family Studies analysis by Wendy Wang, Director of Research.

The data shows rising trends among all demographics — here are the specific signs your girlfriend is on Tinder.

By Gender

Men cheat more often than women in most age groups and across most metrics. But the gap is narrowing, particularly among younger adults.

By Age

The GSS data reveals a surprising pattern. Among the youngest adults, women actually cheat at slightly higher rates than men.

Peak cheating age for men: 70s (26%).

Peak cheating age for women: 60s (16%).

Among Gen Z specifically, the gender gap has nearly vanished. Data compiled by Lazo in 2025 shows that 18% of Gen Z men and 17% of Gen Z women admit to cheating, an almost identical rate.

By Relationship Length and Status

Relationship context matters enormously. The GSS data shows:

These numbers suggest that cheating is both a cause and a consequence of relationship instability. People in distressed relationships are far more likely to turn to dating apps, but the GSS longitudinal data also shows that some people in self-reported happy marriages still cheat.

By Education, Religion, and Race

Wendy Wang's Institute for Family Studies analysis of GSS data provides additional demographic cuts:

• Education: College-educated adults cheat at roughly the same rate (16%) as those with a high school education (15%). Adults with some college but no degree report the highest rate (18%).
• Religious attendance: Adults who rarely or never attend services report significantly higher infidelity rates (18%) than regular attendees (8%).
• Race: Black adults report the highest overall infidelity rate (22%), followed by White adults (16%) and Hispanic adults (13%). Among men specifically, 28% of Black men reported infidelity versus 20% of White men and 16% of Hispanic men.

These demographic differences highlight that infidelity is shaped by a complex web of social, cultural, and economic factors. No single variable explains it.

How Dating Apps Changed the Way People Cheat

Dating apps did not invent infidelity. But they fundamentally altered its mechanics. Understanding this shift requires looking at what researchers call the "opportunity structure" of cheating.

Before Dating Apps

Pre-internet affairs typically followed predictable patterns. They involved coworkers (31% of affairs, according to a Gleeden survey of 8,000 people), people met through social circles, or individuals encountered during business travel (62% of men and 57% of women who travel for work report affairs, per the same data set).

The barriers to entry were high. A potential cheater needed physical proximity, time alone, plausible deniability, and a willing partner. Each requirement acted as a natural friction point that reduced the overall incidence of affairs.

After Dating Apps

Dr. Tammy Nelson, a board-certified sexologist and author of The New Monogamy, has described the shift bluntly. She notes that technology has increased our capacity to compartmentalize our lives and that today a person can be unfaithful to their partner while lying right next to them in bed, without their knowledge.

Dating apps removed nearly every traditional barrier to infidelity:

• Proximity is irrelevant. You can match with someone across town or across the country.
• Time investment is minimal. Swiping takes seconds. Setting up a date takes minutes.
• Anonymity is built in. Most apps do not verify relationship status.
• The pool of willing partners is enormous. Pew reports that 30% of U.S. adults have used a dating app, creating a vast network of potential connections.

A 2020 study in Computers in Human Behavior (n=395) found that perceived success on dating apps increased intention to commit infidelity through a specific psychological pathway: users who received many matches felt more desirable, and that heightened self-perception made them more open to cheating. The researchers called this the "self-perceived desirability" pathway.

The Availability Paradox

The same study found a competing effect. When users perceived a large number of available partners, their intention to cheat actually decreased. The researchers theorized that an abundance of options reduced the perceived scarcity of any individual match, making affair pursuits feel less urgent.

This creates a paradox: dating apps simultaneously increase temptation (by boosting ego) and reduce urgency (by making alternatives feel disposable). The net effect on any individual depends on their personality, relationship satisfaction, and psychological makeup.

What the Research Says About Causation

It is important to note a critical distinction. Dating apps correlate with increased infidelity intention, but the research has not established direct causation. People with higher baseline interest in cheating may be more likely to download dating apps in the first place. Dr. Tammy Nelson emphasizes that while technology enables infidelity, the root cause usually starts internally.

The GSS longitudinal data supports this nuanced view. Overall reported infidelity rates actually declined slightly between 1991-1998 (17% of ever-married adults) and 2021-2022 (13%), even as dating app usage surged during the same period. This does not mean apps have no effect. But it does mean the relationship between technology and infidelity is more complex than a simple cause-and-effect story.

Emotional vs. Physical Cheating on Dating Apps

One of the most significant shifts in modern infidelity is the rise of emotional affairs conducted entirely through digital channels. Dating apps and messaging platforms make it possible to maintain intimate emotional connections without ever meeting in person.

How Common Is Emotional Cheating?

The data on emotional infidelity is striking:

These figures come from Dr. Kathy Nickerson's analysis of 5,783 infidelity reports. The data reveals a clear gender pattern: women are far more likely to engage in affairs that combine emotional and physical components (79.8% vs. 66.5%), while men are more likely to have purely physical affairs (21.4% vs. 10.4%).

The Online-to-Offline Pipeline

Research estimates that 50% to 70% of emotional affairs eventually turn physical. Dating apps accelerate this pipeline by providing a ready-made infrastructure for escalation: match, message, meet.

Esther Perel, a licensed marriage and family therapist and author of The State of Affairs, has observed that the definition of infidelity keeps expanding in the digital era. Activities like sexting, staying secretly active on dating apps, and maintaining intimate online conversations now fall under a broader umbrella of betrayal that previous generations would not have encountered.

Dating Apps as an Emotional Affair On-Ramp

Dating apps are uniquely positioned to facilitate emotional affairs. Unlike a one-time physical encounter, app-based connections typically begin with extended messaging, personal disclosure, and the gradual building of emotional intimacy. This progression mirrors what relationship researchers call "the affair fog," a state in which the novelty and excitement of a new connection distorts decision-making.

A 2024 study published in the Chinese Journal of Communication examined non-single dating app users and found distinct cognitive mechanisms at work. Users rationalized their behavior through "moral disengagement," reframing app use as harmless curiosity rather than infidelity. The study found that this rationalization was stronger in users who had been in their current relationship for longer periods, suggesting that relationship fatigue plays a role in how people justify digital infidelity.

Sixty-four percent of couples say an emotional affair can be just as damaging, or even more harmful, than a physical one. This perception is supported by clinical data: emotional betrayal often causes longer-lasting psychological harm because it threatens the sense of being uniquely valued by a partner.

Do People Consider Online Activity Cheating?

Public opinion on this question is divided but trending toward stricter definitions:

The gap between online and in-person emotional affairs is shrinking in public perception. A majority of Americans now view secret online emotional connections as a form of infidelity. But a significant minority, roughly one in three, still does not consider dating app use alone to be cheating, which may explain why so many partnered individuals remain active on these platforms.

How Cheaters Get Caught: Detection Methods and Rates

If your partner is using dating apps behind your back, how likely are you to find out? And how do most people discover the truth?

The data shows that profile search tools have the highest detection rate. Learn how to use them in our guide on how to check if your partner is on dating sites.

Most Common Discovery Methods

A DatingAdvice.com survey analyzed how cheaters are caught, broken down by generation:

Phone snooping is the single most common detection method. Among millennials, 40.2% of cheaters were caught because their partner checked their phone and found incriminating messages. Gen Z cheaters are caught this way less frequently (22.94%), possibly because they are more careful about clearing message histories or using disappearing-message apps.

The Dating App Catch Rate

One finding from the data deserves special attention: Gen Z individuals are more likely to be caught cheating through a dating app itself (19%) than millennials are (14%). In some cases, partners literally matched with each other while both were secretly using the same app.

This creates an ironic detection vector. The same technology that enables cheating can also expose it, particularly if both partners are on the same platform in the same geographic area.

Why Most Cheating Goes Undetected

Despite these detection methods, a significant amount of infidelity is never discovered. Consider: the Spokeo survey found that 44.3% of respondents have cheated on a partner, but only 50% of respondents said they had been cheated on or suspected it. That gap suggests that a meaningful percentage of affairs remain hidden.

One in ten dating app users in the HighSpeedInternet.com survey said they do not believe they need to disclose an existing relationship while using apps. This combination of active concealment and normalization makes digital infidelity particularly difficult to detect through passive observation alone.

For practical steps on uncovering hidden dating profiles, see our guide on how to catch a cheater.

Why People Cheat on Dating Apps: What the Data Says

Understanding motivation matters because it shapes both prevention and response. Survey data reveals that cheating is rarely about a single cause.

Reported Reasons for Cheating

The Spokeo 2023 survey (n=1,158) asked respondents who admitted to cheating why they did it:

The most common motivation, attention-seeking (22.1%), aligns with the Computers in Human Behavior finding about self-perceived desirability. Dating apps provide a constant stream of validation through matches and messages. For someone feeling undervalued in their relationship, that validation can become addictive.

The Gender Split in Motivation

Women and men cheat for measurably different reasons. Women cite emotional dissatisfaction at a rate of 70%, more than three times the rate of men (20%). Men cite sexual dissatisfaction at 50%, significantly higher than women (35%).

This gender difference has direct implications for dating app behavior. Women who cheat on apps are more likely to seek emotional connection and sustained conversation. Men are more likely to pursue physical meetings. Both patterns are facilitated by dating app design, but they manifest in different usage behaviors.

Personality Factors

A study published on PsyPost examining Tinder use among committed individuals found that non-single users scored significantly higher on measures of psychopathy and neuroticism, and significantly lower on agreeableness and conscientiousness, compared to non-users in relationships. This does not mean everyone on Tinder while in a relationship has a personality disorder. But it does suggest that certain personality traits predict this behavior.

The Role of Relationship Recovery

Not all infidelity ends the relationship. The Spokeo survey found that 40.1% of respondents claim their relationship survived cheating. However, over half (54.5%) believe a relationship can never fully recover from sexual infidelity with another person. The outcome often depends on the type of infidelity and the response. Affairs discovered through phone snooping or dating app matches tend to be more destructive than voluntary confessions, likely because the betrayal of trust is compounded by the deception of concealment.

Research suggests that marriages affected by infidelity end in divorce 50% to 60% of the time. For the 40% to 50% that survive, the recovery process is long and difficult, but not impossible. The critical variable is not the infidelity itself but whether both partners commit to rebuilding trust through transparency and accountability.

What the Data Means for Relationships in 2026

After reviewing dozens of studies and surveys, several clear patterns emerge. Here is what the aggregate data tells us about the current state of dating app infidelity and what it means for your relationship.

The Scale Is Significant but Not Universal

Between 18% and 27% of people in committed relationships have been active on dating apps. That is roughly one in four to one in five. The figure is large enough to warrant concern but far from a majority. Most people in relationships are not on dating apps, and most dating app users are not cheating.

Technology Is an Amplifier, Not a Cause

The GSS data showing a slight decline in overall infidelity rates between 1991 and 2022, even as dating app usage exploded, suggests that apps have not created a new wave of cheaters. Instead, they have given people who are predisposed to cheat a more efficient tool for doing so.

Dr. Tammy Nelson's clinical observation supports this interpretation. She notes that while social media and dating apps influence infidelity, the root typically starts within the individual. Relationship dissatisfaction, attention-seeking, and personality traits are stronger predictors than access to technology.

The Definition of Cheating Is Expanding

Public opinion data shows that Americans increasingly view digital behaviors, including secret dating app activity, as forms of infidelity. Seventy-two percent now consider a secret online emotional relationship to be cheating. This expanding definition means that behaviors that might have been considered harmless a decade ago are now relationship-ending events for many couples.

Detection Is Getting Easier

The same technology that enables cheating also creates digital footprints. Phone records, app notifications, location data, and even mutual matches on dating platforms all serve as potential discovery vectors. Gen Z cheaters are caught through dating apps at a 19% rate, an increase from 14% among millennials.

Tools like CheatScanX and similar services represent a newer detection category: proactive profile searches across multiple dating platforms. Rather than waiting to stumble upon evidence, concerned partners can search for hidden profiles directly. For an overview of these tools, see our Cheaterbuster alternative comparison.

What You Can Do with This Information

If you are reading this article because you suspect your partner is active on dating apps, the statistics offer both context and clarity. You are not overreacting. The data confirms that millions of people in committed relationships maintain dating app profiles. And the research shows that digital activity frequently escalates to physical infidelity over time.

But statistics describe populations, not individuals. Your partner's behavior is what matters. If you have specific concerns, the most reliable path forward is to gather evidence rather than rely on probability.

The State of Dating App Infidelity: A Statistical Summary

To close the data portion of this article, here is a consolidated view of the most important dating app cheating statistics for 2026, drawn from the research reviewed above.

Overall infidelity rates remain steady. The GSS shows 13% of ever-married adults reported extramarital sex in 2021-2022, down from 17% in 1991-1998. Technology has not triggered an infidelity explosion.

Dating app involvement is high. Between 18% and 42% of dating app users are in committed relationships, depending on the study and definition used.

Men are more active on apps while committed. They are roughly twice as likely to keep apps active (HighSpeedInternet.com) and three times as likely to explicitly use apps for cheating (YouGov: 9% vs. 3%).

Emotional affairs are more common than physical ones. Over 78% of men and 91% of women have had some form of emotional affair. Fifty to seventy percent of emotional affairs eventually become physical.

Age matters. Peak infidelity for men is in their 70s (26%). For women, it is in their 60s (16%). But among Gen Z, the gender gap has nearly disappeared (18% vs. 17%).

Attention is the top motivator. Twenty-two percent of cheaters say they did it because they liked the attention, a finding that maps directly onto dating app design, which is built around validation through matches.

Phone snooping catches the most cheaters. At 23% overall and 40% among millennials, checking a partner's phone remains the most common detection method.

Frequently Asked Questions

Methodology and Source Notes

This article synthesizes data from multiple independent sources. Survey sample sizes range from 395 (academic study) to 47,000 (GlobalWebIndex). Government data from the General Social Survey provides the most methodologically rigorous longitudinal data on infidelity rates. Commercial surveys from YouGov, Spokeo, and HighSpeedInternet.com offer more specific data on dating app behaviors but use smaller samples and self-reported data, which may undercount actual infidelity.

All statistics are cited with their source, year of publication, and sample size where available. Where studies report ranges (e.g., 18%-25%), we have preserved the range rather than selecting a single point estimate. Correlation between dating app use and infidelity is noted throughout, but causation has not been established by the available research.

This article was last updated on February 15, 2026.