Why is New Users Higher than Total Users in GA4?

Update time: June 13, 2025

Issue

Some people may encounter that it seems unreasonable that New Users is larger than Total Users, why is that?

Reason

We first need to understand how New Users and Total Users are calculated:

• New Users is to calculate the number of first_visit or first_open
• Total Users depends on the settings in “Report Identification Information”, different types will identify and count users

There are following possibilities:

• Wrongly enable first_visit or first_open, some users will send first_visit or first_open when opening a web page in another tab
• “Reporting identity” enables Blended or Observed, and the user is identified and regarded as the same user. For example, I visit through device A for the first time, send first_visit, and then I log in to the account (User has been set User ID), in the afternoon I used device B, which is also the first time to visit, send first_visit, and also log in to the account. If the “Reporting identity” is enabled for Blended or Observed, since the account is logged in and the User ID is set, so If the same user is recognized, then the Total Users during this period is 1, and the New Users is 2.

Solution

For the first case, there is nothing we can do and no way to fix it.

For the second type, you can set “Reporting identity” as Device-based