How to Get a Telegram Chat ID for a User, Group, Channel or Topic

Updated: October 29, 2026 · 6 min read

A Telegram chat id is the number the Bot API uses to identify a chat: you pass it as chat_id to sendMessage and every other method that targets a chat. The fastest way to get it: send a message to your bot, call getUpdates and read message.chat.id. Below is how to get the chat id of a private chat, a group, a channel or a forum topic, and what to do when getUpdates returns nothing.

What a Telegram chat id looks like

Chat ids can be longer than 32 bits (up to 52 significant bits), so store them as 64-bit integers, such as BIGINT in SQL, not a 32-bit INT. JavaScript numbers hold them safely. Always copy the full value with the minus sign: a dropped -100 is the classic cause of chat not found.

How to get a chat id with getUpdates

1. Open your bot in Telegram and press Start or send any text. Bots can't message users who haven't started them, and there is no update until someone writes.
2. Call getUpdates with your token, in a browser or with curl.
3. Find the update with your message and copy message.chat.id.

curl "https://api.telegram.org/bot123456789:AAEexampleTokenReplaceWithYours/getUpdates"

{
  "ok": true,
  "result": [
    {
      "update_id": 870123457,
      "message": {
        "message_id": 12,
        "from": {"id": 123456789, "is_bot": false, "first_name": "Alex"},
        "chat": {"id": 123456789, "first_name": "Alex", "type": "private"},
        "date": 1793266200,
        "text": "hi"
      }
    }
  ]
}

No terminal? Open getUpdates in the Bot API Tester, start long polling and write to your bot: the update with chat.id appears in the history. Starting polling there removes an existing webhook, so restore it afterwards if your bot depends on one.

When there are many updates, this Python script prints every chat it finds, whatever the update type:

import requests

TOKEN = "123456789:AAEexampleTokenReplaceWithYours"
data = requests.get(f"https://api.telegram.org/bot{TOKEN}/getUpdates", timeout=10).json()
if not data["ok"]:
    raise SystemExit(f'{data["error_code"]}: {data["description"]}')

for update in data["result"]:
    for kind, payload in update.items():
        if isinstance(payload, dict) and "chat" in payload:
            chat = payload["chat"]
            name = chat.get("title") or chat.get("first_name")
            print(kind, chat["id"], chat["type"], name)

Telegram group chat id

1. Add the bot to the group.
2. Send /start@your_bot in the group, with your bot's username. By default bots run in privacy mode and receive only commands meant for them, replies to their messages and service messages, so an ordinary "hi" never reaches the bot.
3. Call getUpdates and copy message.chat.id: a negative number, with the -100 prefix for supergroups.

Often adding the bot is enough by itself: it produces a my_chat_member update and a service message, both containing the group's chat.id. If the bot should read every message, disable privacy mode with /setprivacy in @BotFather and re-add the bot to the group, or make it an administrator.

One catch: when a basic group is upgraded to a supergroup, its id changes. Sending to the old id fails with 400 Bad Request: group chat was upgraded to a supergroup chat, and the response carries the new id in parameters.migrate_to_chat_id. Save it and retry.

Telegram channel chat id

Public channel: you don't need the number. Use "chat_id": "@channelusername" directly, or call getChat with the username if you want the numeric id anyway. To post, the bot must be a channel administrator either way.

Private channel:

1. Add the bot to the channel as an administrator.
2. Publish a post in the channel.
3. Call getUpdates and read channel_post.chat.id.

{"update_id": 870123460, "channel_post": {"message_id": 15, "chat": {"id": -1001234567890, "title": "My Channel", "type": "channel"}, "date": 1793266300, "text": "test"}}

Another trick: copy the link of any post. Private links look like https://t.me/c/1234567890/15; put -100 in front of the number after /c/ to get the Bot API id, -1001234567890. The same works for private supergroups.

Forum topics: message_thread_id

Topics in a forum supergroup share the supergroup's chat id; the topic itself is identified by message_thread_id. Send /start@your_bot inside the topic, call getUpdates and read both message.chat.id and message.message_thread_id (such messages also carry "is_topic_message": true). Pass both values to post into that topic:

curl -X POST "https://api.telegram.org/bot123456789:AAEexampleTokenReplaceWithYours/sendMessage" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"chat_id": -1001234567890, "message_thread_id": 42, "text": "Hello, topic!"}'

Troubleshooting: empty result, 409 Conflict, chat not found

• "result": []: there are no new updates. Write to the bot and call again. Updates are kept for 24 hours, and an update disappears once it is confirmed, so a running bot or an earlier call with offset may already have consumed yours. In groups, remember privacy mode.
• 409 Conflict: can't use getUpdates method while webhook is active: a webhook is set. Call deleteWebhook, read the id, then set the webhook again if your bot or an n8n workflow needs it. Alternatively, log incoming updates in your webhook handler.
• 409 Conflict: terminated by other getUpdates request: another process is polling with the same token. Stop it first.
• 400 Bad Request: chat not found when sending: a wrong id or missing -100 prefix, a user who never started the bot, or a bot that isn't in the group or channel.
• 403 Forbidden: bot was blocked by the user: the user blocked the bot, and only they can undo it.

curl "https://api.telegram.org/bot123456789:AAEexampleTokenReplaceWithYours/deleteWebhook"

Where you need the chat id

With a token and a chat id you can send notifications from scripts, cron jobs, CI pipelines and monitoring:

curl -X POST "https://api.telegram.org/bot123456789:AAEexampleTokenReplaceWithYours/sendMessage" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"chat_id": 123456789, "text": "Backup finished"}'

Automation tools such as n8n and AI assistants that connect to Telegram ask for the same pair: the bot token and the chat id to write to or accept messages from. See how to get and check a Telegram bot token for the first half, and how to send messages with the Bot API for formatting and buttons.