Jennie is 30 years old in 2026. Born January 16, 1996, the BLACKPINK star turned 30 this January — here is her birthday, age timeline, and 2026 story.
Last updated: October 31, 2026 · By Nathan Cole
Jennie is 30 years old in 2026. The BLACKPINK rapper and solo star was born Jennie Kim on January 16, 1996, in Bundang, Seongnam, South Korea, and she turned 30 on January 16, 2026. That birthday landed in the middle of one of the busiest stretches of her career: a 33-show world tour with BLACKPINK, a group mini album, a solo EP, a festival run across three continents, and a national honour no K-pop girl group had received before.
The number matters because so many profile pages still get it wrong. Pages written before January 2026 list her as 29, and they stay at the top of search results for months after the birthday passes. This article settles the age with the birthday math, then covers the life behind it: the childhood split between South Korea and New Zealand, six years as a YG trainee, a debut at 20, a solo career launched at 22, independence at 27, a debut album at 29, and everything she has done since turning 30.
Quick Facts
| Full Name | Jennie Kim (Kim Jennie; Jennie Ruby Jane Kim) |
| Born | January 16, 1996, Bundang, Seongnam, South Korea (age 30) |
| Age in 2026 | 30 (turned 30 on January 16, 2026; turns 31 on January 16, 2027) |
| Height | Approximately 163 cm (5 ft 4 in) |
| Group | BLACKPINK — main rapper and vocalist; debuted August 8, 2016, aged 20 |
| Solo Label | Odd Atelier (OA Entertainment), founded December 2023; Columbia Records partner since September 2024 |
| Solo Album | Ruby (March 7, 2025); EP Fallen Angel (August 28, 2026) |
| Net Worth 2026 | Approximately $30 million (single-outlet 2026 estimate, reported not confirmed) |
| 2026 Honour | Okgwan Order of Cultural Merit, October 29, 2026, with BLACKPINK |
How This Age Was Confirmed
Jennie’s birth date is one of the least disputed facts in K-pop: January 16, 1996, in Bundang, Seongnam, appears across her profiles, and multiple outlets updated in January 2026 record her turning 30 on that date. The age in this article is simple calendar math from that date to October 31, 2026 — 30 years and about nine and a half months. Two traps catch other pages. First, pages published before January 16, 2026, list 29 and never update. Second, South Korea’s old traditional age count, which added a year at birth and another each New Year, would have made her 31; that system was replaced by international age for official purposes in June 2023, so 30 is the correct figure everywhere now. Where a source in this article still shows 29, it is a stale page, and this article says so rather than averaging the two.
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The Answer, With The Math
Jennie was born on January 16, 1996. Subtract that from October 31, 2026, and the answer is 30. She turned 30 on January 16, 2026, and she turns 31 on January 16, 2027. There is no range and no disagreement among current sources: OMG! Idol lists her birthday as January 16, 1996, at 30 years old; Bored Panda’s profile, published on her birthday in 2026, lists 30; Kemifilani’s biography states plainly that she is 30 years old in 2026; KpopAnswers’ March 2026 group-age rundown lists her at 30.
The confusion online has a simple cause. K-pop profile pages are written once and rarely revisited, so a page that said 29 in December 2025 keeps saying 29 through most of 2026. One group-age page in this research still listed her at 29 alongside a Jisoo entry that was already updated to 31. Readers who land on those pages get last year’s number. The fix is the birthday itself: any page that knows January 16, 1996, and still says 29 after January 2026 is out of date, whatever its ranking.
Her star sign, for the readers who ask, is Capricorn. Her birthplace, Bundang, is a planned city district in Seongnam, in Gyeonggi Province, just south of Seoul — the same Seoul capital region where BLACKPINK would later be built.
A Childhood Split Between Two Countries
Jennie Kim was born in Bundang and grew up there as an only child. At nine, she moved to Auckland, New Zealand, where she attended ACG Parnell College. Five years in an English-speaking school system gave her the fluent English that later set her apart in BLACKPINK’s international interviews and songwriting sessions — she switches languages mid-sentence in a way that reads as natural rather than rehearsed, because it was her school language for half her childhood.
At 14, she returned to South Korea alone and auditioned for YG Entertainment in 2010, reportedly singing Rihanna’s “Take a Bow.” YG signed her. What followed was about six years as a trainee, the longest apprenticeship of any BLACKPINK member. Trainee life in Seoul in the early 2010s meant daily vocal, rap, dance, and language training with no guarantee of a debut at the end of it. Jennie was featured on labelmates’ tracks during those years, the standard YG way of testing a trainee in public before committing a group to her. She was 20 by the time the group finally arrived — older than most K-pop debutants, and more finished as a performer for it.
Debut At 20: BLACKPINK Arrives
BLACKPINK debuted on August 8, 2016, with the single album Square One, carrying “Whistle” and “Boombayah.” Jennie was 20 years and about seven months old. She took the main rapper and vocalist roles, the two jobs that defined the group’s early sound: the rap verses that opened tracks, and the vocal lines that carried choruses. The group was YG’s first girl group since 2NE1, and the debut landed in a market that had waited years for it.
The next two years built the scale. “As If It’s Your Last” in June 2017, the Square Up EP and “Ddu-du Ddu-du” in June 2018, and a first world tour announced that year turned a Korean debut into a global act before Jennie turned 23. The age detail matters here because it explains her position in the group: she was never the youngest member finding her feet. She was the trainee veteran, the one with six years of YG training behind her, and the group’s rap identity was built around her from day one.
SOLO At 22: The First Solo Chapter
On November 12, 2018, Jennie released “SOLO,” her first solo single, at 22. YG’s plan at the time was to give each member a solo release in turn, and Jennie went first. The song’s video passed a billion views on YouTube in later years, one of only two solo videos in YG’s own record list to reach that mark, alongside Lisa’s “Money” performance video. For a 22-year-old who had spent her teens in a trainee room, it was proof that the solo lane existed alongside the group one.
The solo work then paused for the group’s imperial phase: the Kill This Love EP in 2019, the full album The Album in 2020, the Born Pink album and its record-breaking world tour in 2022 and 2023, and a Coachella headline set with the group in 2023. Jennie turned 27 during that run. By the time the Born Pink tour closed, she had spent a full decade as a public performer and was ready for the move that defined her late twenties.
The Idol At 27 And Independence At 27
In 2023, at 27, Jennie made her acting debut as Dyanne in HBO’s The Idol. The show itself divided critics, but the casting told its own story: a K-pop star being asked to play a pop star on an American prestige-cable drama, in English, in her first screen role. It was the year her career split into two lanes that would never fully rejoin — group member and solo operator — and she handled both in the same twelve months.
The decisive move came in December 2023. BLACKPINK renewed with YG Entertainment for group activities only, and Jennie founded her own label, Odd Atelier, announced on December 24, 2023. The structure mattered. She did not leave BLACKPINK; she took ownership of her solo work while keeping the group contract. In September 2024 she signed with Columbia Records in partnership with Odd Atelier, giving the solo label a global distribution partner. She was 28 when the Columbia deal closed, and the first release under the new setup arrived weeks later.
Mantra And Ruby At 28 And 29
“Mantra” arrived on October 11, 2024, Jennie’s first release under her own label and her first solo single since leaving YG as a solo artist. It peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard Global 200 and on South Korea’s Circle Digital Chart. The song’s hook — a “pretty girl mantra” — became the calling card of the solo era, and it stayed in her setlists through 2026, from the Ruby Experience to the summer festival run.
Her debut solo studio album, Ruby, followed on March 7, 2025, through Odd Atelier and Columbia Records, seven weeks after she turned 29 on January 16, 2025 — so Ruby is a 29-year-old’s album, recorded at 28 and released at 29. The 15-track record spans pop, hip-hop, and R&B, with features from Childish Gambino, Doechii, Dominic Fike, FKJ, Dua Lipa, and Kali Uchis. Its singles ran in sequence: “Mantra” in October 2024, “Love Hangover” on January 31, 2025, “ExtraL” on February 21, “Like Jennie” on March 7, and “Handlebars” on March 11. “Like Jennie” peaked at No. 5 on the Billboard Global 200. The album’s title is her own name in full — Ruby Jane — and the record plays like a statement of ownership: her label, her tracklist, her collaborators.
The Ruby Experience: Five Shows, Four Cities
The Ruby Experience, Jennie’s first solo concert run, began on March 6, 2025, in Los Angeles and closed on March 21, 2025, at Le Zenith in Paris. Five shows in four cities: two nights at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, one at Radio City Music Hall in New York, one at the Inspire Arena in Incheon, and the Paris finale. Promoted by AEG Presents and sponsored by Spotify, it was billed by Jennie herself as “intense and intimate,” and the small room count was the point — a deliberate contrast with the stadiums BLACKPINK plays.
A month later she played solo sets at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on April 13 and 20, 2025, her first solo performances there after appearing with BLACKPINK in 2019 and 2023. The Korea Herald described the booking as the first time a solo K-pop artist performed on that stage. She was 29. The through-line from the trainee room to Coachella’s Outdoor Theatre took fifteen years, and the Ruby run was the payoff: a solo catalogue, a solo audience, and a solo stage, all under her own label.
Back With BLACKPINK: The Deadline Tour At 29 And 30
Group duties resumed in July 2025, when BLACKPINK opened the Deadline World Tour at Goyang Stadium on July 5 and 6, 2025, with Jennie still 29. The tour’s first new group song in two years and eight months, “JUMP,” premiered on that stage and was released on July 11, 2025. It entered the Billboard Global 200 and Global Excl. US charts at No. 1 with 123 million streams in its first week, the group’s third Global 200 No. 1, and peaked at No. 28 on the Hot 100 over a 10-week run, the group’s longest.
The tour grew to 33 shows in 16 cities and ran through Jennie’s 30th birthday — the Tokyo Dome dates fell on January 16, 17, and 18, 2026, so she spent her birthday weekend on stage in Tokyo — before closing on January 26, 2026, at Kai Tak Stadium in Hong Kong. Along the way, the August 15 and 16, 2025, Wembley Stadium dates made BLACKPINK the first K-pop girl group to headline the venue. Jennie performed “Mantra” as part of her solo set inside the group show, the solo era folded back into the group machine without either side giving ground.
Thirty In 2026: The DEADLINE Album, Festivals, And Fallen Angel
On February 27, 2026, BLACKPINK released its third mini album, DEADLINE, with the title track “GO” — the group’s first album in about four years, and Jennie’s first group release as a 30-year-old. A week later, on March 6, 2026, her own label marked Ruby’s first anniversary with Ruby: The Complete Edition, adding six bonus tracks: two “Like Jennie” remix versions from award-show performances and solo renditions of “Handlebars,” “ExtraL,” “Damn Right,” and “Love Hangover” that had previously existed only on physical editions.
The summer of 2026 was a festival run under her own name. “Mantra” stayed in the set as she headlined ComplexCon Hong Kong on March 22, Governors Ball in New York on June 7, Roskilde Festival on July 3, Open’er Festival on July 4, Mad Cool in Madrid on July 10, and Lollapalooza on August 1. A digital EP, Fallen Angel, followed on August 28, 2026. The pattern of her thirties is already visible: group albums and tours on one track, solo festivals and releases on the other, both running at the same time.
The Okgwan Honour: October 29, 2026
On October 29, 2026, two days before this article’s publication, all four BLACKPINK members received the Okgwan Order of Cultural Merit at the 17th Korean Popular Culture and Arts Awards, held at the Haeoreum Grand Theater of the National Theater of Korea in Seoul. They are the first members of a K-pop girl group to receive the honour. The members were not present at the ceremony; a YG Entertainment representative accepted on their behalf.
The citation, in effect, covers the decade this article traces: a debut at 20, a solo career built in parallel, a world tour that closed in January 2026, and a mini album in February. State honours of this kind are rarely given to active pop acts in their twenties; Jennie received hers at 30, with the group ten years into its career. It is the closest thing South Korea has to an official verdict on a pop career, and it arrived while the career is still accelerating.
How Old Are The Other BLACKPINK Members In 2026?
Readers asking about Jennie’s age usually want the whole group. Here is the 2026 picture, all from the same January-birthday math:
| Member | Born | Age in 2026 | Role |
| Jisoo | January 3, 1995 | 31 | Vocalist, visual; the group’s eldest |
| Jennie | January 16, 1996 | 30 | Main rapper, vocalist |
| Rose | February 11, 1997 | 29 | Main vocalist |
| Lisa | March 27, 1997 | 29 | Main dancer, rapper; the group’s youngest |
Jennie sits second-oldest, thirteen days behind Jisoo in birthday terms but a full year behind her in age, since Jisoo’s January 3, 1995, birthday puts her in the previous birth year. The gap between Jennie and Lisa, the youngest, is fourteen months. At debut in August 2016, the spread ran from 21 (Jisoo) down to 19 (Lisa and Rose); Jennie, at 20, was the middle of the group in age as well as in sound.
Net Worth At 30: What The Money Looks Like
An age article still has to answer the money question, because it is the second thing every reader searches. One 2026 estimate, from PeopleAndMedia, puts Jennie’s net worth at approximately $30 million. This article reports that figure with a clear label: it is a single outlet’s estimate, not a consensus, and no audited figure exists for any K-pop solo artist. The pillars behind it are public enough to name — BLACKPINK’s touring and recording income, the solo Ruby catalogue and its festival fees, her own label’s share of solo revenue, and long-running fashion work, including her role as a Chanel house ambassador — but the split between group income, solo income, and endorsements is not disclosed, so any single number should be read as an order of magnitude, not a balance.
What the money story does confirm is the structural change at 27. Before December 2023, solo income flowed through YG’s contracts. After Odd Atelier, Jennie owns the solo vehicle. That is why the age milestones and the money milestones track each other so closely in her case: independence at 27, a debut album at 29, and a festival-headliner fee level at 30 that belongs to her label, not to a group contract.
Personal Life At 30
Jennie is approximately 163 cm tall (5 ft 4 in), a figure that appears across her profiles and settles the second most-asked physical question after her age. She keeps her private life private in the way BLACKPINK’s members generally do: no public relationship is confirmed, and this article does not repeat the dating rumours that gossip pages attach to her. What is public is the work identity she has built outside music — fashion’s most durable K-pop partnership, with Chanel, where she has been a house ambassador since 2017, and a reputation among stylists as the member whose off-duty looks set trends rather than follow them.
The through-line of her personal story is the one this article opened with: a child who moved countries at nine, trained for six years for a debut that might never have come, and then spent her twenties turning a group career into two careers at once. Turning 30 has not slowed either track. If anything, 2026 is the year both tracks ran at full speed in the same months — a group mini album in February, a solo reissue in March, six festival headline sets across the summer, a solo EP in August, and a national honour in October.
Age At Every Milestone: The Timeline
| Date | Age | Milestone |
| January 16, 1996 | 0 | Born in Bundang, Seongnam, South Korea |
| 2005 | 9 | Moves to Auckland, New Zealand; ACG Parnell College |
| 2010 | 14 | Returns to South Korea; joins YG Entertainment as a trainee |
| August 8, 2016 | 20 | BLACKPINK debut with Square One |
| November 12, 2018 | 22 | First solo single, “SOLO” |
| 2023 | 27 | Acting debut in HBO’s The Idol; founds Odd Atelier (December 2023) |
| October 11, 2024 | 28 | “Mantra” — first release under her own label |
| March 7, 2025 | 29 | Debut solo album Ruby; Ruby Experience tour; Coachella solo sets |
| July 2025 – January 2026 | 29–30 | BLACKPINK Deadline World Tour, 33 shows, 16 cities |
| February 27, 2026 | 30 | BLACKPINK mini album DEADLINE (“GO”) |
| August 28, 2026 | 30 | Solo EP Fallen Angel |
| October 29, 2026 | 30 | Okgwan Order of Cultural Merit with BLACKPINK |
The next birthday to watch is January 16, 2027, when she turns 31. By then, the question this article answers will have moved on by a year — and the stale pages will be wrong again, in the other direction.
Sources & Reporting
Birth date and age: OMG! Idol’s Jennie profile (born January 16, 1996, Bundang, Seongnam; 30 years old); Bored Panda’s Jennie bio (January 16, 1996; 30 years old; published January 16, 2026); Kemifilani’s Jennie Kim biography (born January 16, 1996; 30 years old in 2026); KpopAnswers’ March 27, 2026, group-age rundown (Jennie 30, born January 16, 1996; Jisoo 31, born January 3, 1995); KPopFam’s Jennie profile (full name Kim Jennie; Jennie Ruby Jane; height approximately 163 cm; moved to New Zealand at 9; YG audition 2010 singing Rihanna’s “Take a Bow”); NamuWiki’s Jennie entry (born January 16, 1996, 30 years old; Fallen Angel digital EP, August 28, 2026). Solo career: Wikipedia’s Mantra and Ruby Experience entries (Odd Atelier founded November 2023; Columbia partnership September 2024; Ruby announced January 21, 2025, released March 7, 2025; Ruby Experience March 6–21, 2025, five shows; “Mantra” released October 11, 2024, Billboard Global 200 No. 3; Coachella April 13 and 20, 2025; 2026 festival sets at ComplexCon Hong Kong, Governors Ball, Roskilde, Open’er, Mad Cool, Lollapalooza); Billboard Philippines (Ruby: The Complete Edition, March 6, 2026, six bonus tracks). Group career: KpopNo1’s October 25, 2026, BLACKPINK guide (Deadline tour 33 shows, 16 cities; “JUMP” July 11, 2025; DEADLINE mini album February 27, 2026, title track “GO”); MyMyTune’s BLACKPINK profile (tour July 2025–January 2026; OA announced December 24, 2023; “JUMP” Global 200 No. 1 with 123 million first-week streams, Hot 100 No. 28, 10 weeks); Popfiltr’s Jennie artist profile (Wembley August 15–16, 2025, first K-pop girl group to headline; Coachella solo sets described by Korea Herald; 2026 EP Fallen Angel); BackyardDrunkard and SeolNotes on the October 29, 2026, Okgwan Order of Cultural Merit at the 17th Korean Popular Culture and Arts Awards (first K-pop girl group members; YG representative accepted). Net worth: PeopleAndMedia’s 2026 Jennie Kim profile (approximately $30 million estimate; born January 16, 1996, 30 years old), reported here as a single-outlet estimate. Where outlets disagreed — mainly stale profile pages still showing 29 — this article prints the birthday math and the reason for the gap rather than the older number. If new reporting emerges, this article will be updated and the change noted here.
Nathan Cole
Nathan Cole is the editor of Guide Net Worth. He covers celebrity wealth the way a business desk covers earnings: reported figures first, estimates labeled as estimates, and no invented numbers. Every profile on this site passes through his desk before it publishes. About Guide Net Worth · Corrections: figures are updated when new reporting emerges — contact us via the About page if you spot an error.
Frequently Asked Questions
How old is Jennie in 2026?
Jennie is 30 years old in 2026. She was born on January 16, 1996, in Bundang, Seongnam, South Korea, and turned 30 on January 16, 2026. She turns 31 on January 16, 2027.
When is Jennie’s birthday?
Jennie’s birthday is January 16. She was born on January 16, 1996, which makes her a Capricorn. Her 30th birthday fell on January 16, 2026, during BLACKPINK’s Deadline World Tour dates at the Tokyo Dome.
How old was Jennie when BLACKPINK debuted?
Jennie was 20 years old when BLACKPINK debuted on August 8, 2016, with the single album Square One (“Whistle” and “Boombayah”). She had trained at YG Entertainment for about six years before the debut, the longest trainee period of any member.
How old are the other BLACKPINK members in 2026?
In 2026, Jisoo is 31 (born January 3, 1995), Jennie is 30 (born January 16, 1996), Rose is 29 (born February 11, 1997), and Lisa is 29 (born March 27, 1997). Jennie is the group’s second-oldest member.
What is Jennie’s Korean age?
Under South Korea’s old traditional age system, Jennie would have been counted as 31 in 2026, since that system added a year at birth and another each New Year. South Korea replaced it with international age for official purposes in June 2023, so her correct age is 30 — the same figure used everywhere else.
How old was Jennie when she released SOLO?
Jennie was 22 years old when she released her first solo single, “SOLO,” on November 12, 2018. She went first in YG’s plan to give each BLACKPINK member a solo release, and the video later passed a billion views on YouTube.
How tall is Jennie?
Jennie is approximately 163 cm tall, which is about 5 feet 4 inches. That figure appears consistently across her profiles.
What is Jennie doing at 30 in 2026?
At 30, Jennie released BLACKPINK’s mini album DEADLINE on February 27, 2026, marked Ruby’s first anniversary with Ruby: The Complete Edition on March 6, headlined six festivals across the summer (ComplexCon Hong Kong, Governors Ball, Roskilde, Open’er, Mad Cool, and Lollapalooza), released the solo EP Fallen Angel on August 28, and received the Okgwan Order of Cultural Merit with BLACKPINK on October 29, 2026.
References & Sources
This article has been fact-checked and verified against multiple public sources, financial disclosures, SEC filings, Forbes reports, Celebrity Net Worth databases, and official records. All net worth estimates are based on publicly available information and financial analysis.