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Subtitles vs captions in Premiere Pro

Quick answer: in Premiere Pro, "Subtitle" is the open, styleable text format you burn into the picture, and "closed captions" (CEA-608 and 708) are a data stream the viewer can turn on and off. For social video you want Subtitle. For broadcast delivery you want closed captions.

What Premiere means by subtitles

When you click Create captions and pick Subtitle as the format, you get a caption track that you can style freely: any font, size, color, outline and background box. On export you can burn it into the video or save it as a sidecar .srt. This is the format behind almost every captioned Reel, TikTok and Short.

What Premiere means by closed captions

CEA-608 and CEA-708 are broadcast standards. The text is stored as data alongside the video, and the player decides whether to display it. Styling is limited by the standard, which is why your fancy font disappears when you pick this format. Broadcasters, streaming services and some accessibility requirements ask for it by name.

Which one should you use?

Ask where the video is going. Instagram, TikTok, YouTube Shorts or a website: Subtitle, burned in. A TV network, a streaming platform with a spec sheet, or a client that says "608" or "708": closed captions. YouTube long-form: either a sidecar .srt uploaded as captions, or burned-in subtitles if you want a specific look.

Switching formats later

Right-click the caption track header and change the track format. Premiere converts the existing captions, but styling that the new format doesn't support gets dropped, so convert before you style, not after.

Neither format animates

Both formats support reusable Track Styles. Current Premiere versions also include a Single Word layout. Word-by-word highlighting, pop-ins and pill backgrounds need a graphics layer instead of a caption track, either built by hand or generated by a plugin.