Subtitles vs. Closed Captioning: What’s the Difference?

*Updated July 2026

Key takeaways.

The difference between subtitles and closed captions in visual content is that subtitles are associated with translated content, while closed captions are generally used to make content accessible for viewers who have trouble hearing.

Many people use the terms interchangeably.

However, it’s important to understand the distinction between the two, particularly if you’re involved in creative production.

What are closed captions?

Closed captions are on-screen text that shows both the dialogue and important non-speech sounds that are part of a movie or video, such as thunder or suspenseful music.

They are generally intended for viewers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing.

The Americans with Disabilities Act requires creators to offer closed captioning (along with other services) so that their content is accessible to all viewers.

These kinds of captions are often typed live and included with the television signal itself.

Accessibility for disabled viewers is a key motivation for closed captioning, but it can also make content easier to follow for all viewers.

In fact, more than 80% of all viewers who turn captions on don’t actually require captions for a disability-related reason.

While closed captions include dialogue, you’ll also find sound effects, the names of speakers, and other elements that aren’t present in subtitles.

For example, there might be a caption for a ringing phone so that viewers who have trouble hearing will still understand what’s going on.

The difference between closed captions and open captions is that closed captions can be turned off.

In contrast, open captions are embedded in the video itself and can’t be removed.

If you’re watching a movie on most streaming platforms, you can typically select either foreign-language subtitles or closed captions in the same language as the film.

What are subtitles?

Subtitles are text translations of the dialogue featured in your movie or TV show.

While closed captions are primarily intended for viewers who have trouble hearing, subtitles are designed for viewers who can hear the content normally but need the dialogue in another language.

As such, they are usually limited to spoken dialogue, excluding other sounds like ringing phones, ambient music, or traffic noises.

These sounds are generally easy for foreign viewers to understand, so there’s no need to explain them through subtitles.

Of course, creators may still decide that some additional notes are necessary to provide cultural context or other relevant information.

How are open captions different from closed captions?

Open captions differ from closed captions in that they are tied to the video and cannot be turned off or removed from the screen.

Closed captions, on the other hand, can be turned on or off by the viewer themselves, usually through a menu button.

Open captions are often used in situations where a movie or show contains short sections in a foreign language.

Since the creators don’t expect viewers to understand this language, they’ll burn captions into the video directly.

This strategy ensures that viewers won’t inadvertently remove captions that they need to understand the content.

The video below reinforces the difference between subtitles, closed captions, and open captions with examples of each.

When should I use closed captions over subtitles?

You should use closed captions rather than subtitles when you want to make content accessible for viewers who are hard of hearing.

This audience may not be able to fully understand your content if you only provide subtitles for dialogue.

On the other hand, subtitles are better for situations where you want to make dialogue easier to understand.

Foreign-language content is the most common use case, but subtitles are also used in many other contexts.

Even native speakers often use subtitles so that they can follow the dialogue more easily.

It often makes sense to produce captions and subtitles so that viewers can access both.

For example, an English-language movie might include captions in English as well as subtitles in other languages.

How do you add captions or subtitles to a video?

Captions or subtitles are most often added to a video using SRT (SubRip Subtitle) or WebVTT (Web Video Text Tracks) files. While there are many file formats, your destination platform or player will determine the best one to use.

SRT and WebVTT files are time-coded, which means they tell the video player exactly when to display each line.

These kinds of captions tend to be much more accurate than a live transcription.

With that in mind, adding captions is more complicated than simply transcribing dialogue.

At Voice Crafters, we offer translation as well as embedding and other relevant services.

Check out our video translation services page to learn how we can help embed captions or subtitles in your video.

If you have accurate subtitles in the native language, you should be able to translate them while using the same SRT format for the target language.

That makes it easy to embed translated subtitles without restarting the process from scratch.

Final thoughts

You may have thought that subtitles and closed captions are the same, but it’s important to use these terms precisely in a video production setting.

This will help you avoid ambiguities when communicating with your team.

At this point, you’re ready to start developing whatever text makes sense for the work you’re creating.

However, you may still need help translating your video into other languages for foreign-language subtitles.

Here at Voice Crafters, we can translate videos into more than 80 different languages.

We also transcribe and embed subtitles to help our clients localize projects for different audiences.

Check out our website to learn more about our video translation services.

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