Tirzepatide Dosage Chart 2026: The Full Titration Schedule (2.5 mg → 15 mg)

The schedule, week by week

The label schedule is deliberately slow. You stay at 2.5 mg for four weeks, then move to 5 mg for at least four weeks, and continue in 2.5 mg steps with a minimum of four weeks at each new dose. There is no clinical reason to move faster, and moving faster is the single most common cause of the nausea that makes people quit.

Weeks 1–4 sit at 2.5 mg. This dose produces little weight loss for most people and that is expected — its job is to let the gut adapt. Weeks 5–8 at 5 mg is where appetite suppression usually becomes obvious. From week 9 onward, each step is a judgment call between more effect and more side effects.

Your prescriber can hold you at any dose indefinitely. If 7.5 mg is producing steady loss with tolerable side effects, there is no requirement to climb. Escalation is a tool for an inadequate response, not a schedule you owe anyone.

What each dose actually does

In SURMOUNT-1, mean 72-week weight loss was 15.0% at 5 mg, 19.5% at 10 mg and 20.9% at 15 mg. The gap between 10 mg and 15 mg is small — roughly 1.4 percentage points — while side effects and, on dose-scaled pricing, cost both continue to climb. That flattening is why 10 mg is the most common long-term maintenance dose in practice.

If you have type 2 diabetes, scale your expectations down. SURMOUNT-2 found 12.8% at 10 mg and 14.7% at 15 mg in that population — real, meaningful, but roughly two-thirds of the non-diabetic figures.

Missed doses

If you remember within four days (96 hours) of your scheduled day, take it and keep your original weekly schedule. If more than four days have passed, skip it entirely and take the next dose on your normal day. Never take two doses within three days of each other.

If you miss more than one consecutive week, contact your prescriber before resuming. Tolerance to gastrointestinal effects fades quickly, and restarting at your previous dose after a long gap is a common cause of severe nausea. Many clinicians will step you back down a level and re-titrate.

The cost trap hidden in the schedule

Titration is where dose-scaled pricing bites. A program advertising a low entry price is often quoting the 2.5 mg tier — the dose you occupy for exactly four weeks. By the time you reach the dose that is actually working for you, that same program may be charging substantially more per month.

Flat-rate programs charge one price at every tier. Over a 12-month course that difference typically dwarfs any first-month discount. Run your own numbers on the price calculator before you commit to anything.

Common questions