“All I Want for Christmas Is You” Is Now the Longest-Running No. 1 Song in History

Mariah Carey’s holiday classic achieved a record-breaking 20th week at the top

By Walden Green

Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” is now the longest-running No. 1 song in U.S. chart history. The 1994 modern Christmas classic has spent a cumulative 20 weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100, breaking the previous record of 19 weeks shared by Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” and Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus’ “Old Town Road.”

First appearing on Carey’s Merry Christmas album, “All I Want for Christmas Is You” was originally ineligible for the Hot 100 because it was not released as a commercial single. Following a rule change, the song made its debut on the singles chart in 2000. “All I Want for Christmas Is You” first hit No. 1 for two weeks in 2019—the longest a song had ever taken to do so—and has consistently topped the chart every year since.

For more than two decades, Carey’s Boyz II Men duet “One Sweet Day,” from her 1995 album Daydream, held the longest run atop the Billboard Hot 100. Daddy Yankee and Luis Fonsi’s “Despacito” remix, featuring Justin Bieber, tied the record in 2017 and “Old Town Road” finally surpassed it in 2019.

Carey shared her latest album, Here for It All, earlier this year. She received the Video Vanguard Award at the 2025 MTV VMAs and is set to be honored as MusiCares’ 2026 Person of the Year with a tribute concert at the Los Angeles Convention Center on Friday, January 30—two days before next year’s Grammy Awards. Carey will also perform at the opening ceremony for the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, Italy.