LinkedIn Connections: What 1st, 2nd and 3rd Mean
The badge next to a name looks like a fact about that person. It is measured from your account, and it decides what LinkedIn lets you do next.
A 1st-degree connection on LinkedIn is someone you are directly connected to: one of you sent an invitation and the other accepted it. A 2nd-degree connection is connected to one of your 1st-degree connections, and a 3rd-degree connection is connected to one of your 2nd. In search, 3rd+ stands for that third step and everyone further out.
Those steps decide what you can do: who you can message for free, whose contact details you see, and who needs an invitation or an introduction first. They are counted from one account, so the same person can be 1st to a colleague and 3rd+ to you, and software that works many LinkedIn accounts at once has to read every degree from the right one. That is the job gtm-api.com does across 20,000+ accounts, with under 1% of them ever restricted.
Jump to: The three degrees · What 3rd+ means · What each degree lets you do · Whose degree it is · FAQ · Sources
What 1st, 2nd and 3rd mean on LinkedIn
LinkedIn counts the distance between two members in accepted connections, and the badge beside a name in search results and on a profile is that count, taken from the account you are signed in to.
| Degree | Who they are | How you reach them |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | Accepted an invitation from you, or you accepted theirs | A direct message, free |
| 2nd | Connected to at least one of your 1st-degree connections | An invitation, InMail, or an introduction through the connection you share |
| 3rd | Connected to one of your 2nd-degree connections | An invitation or InMail, with nobody in common to introduce you |
| Out of network | No path to you within three steps | The same as 3rd, and a search card may show no degree badge |
LinkedIn’s developer documentation draws the same line. Its Connections API returns a member’s 1st-degree connections to apps LinkedIn has approved, and stops there: “2nd-degree connections, or connections of your member’s connections, are not available from LinkedIn.”
The rings grow fast. Three hundred connections with three hundred connections each can put almost 90,000 people in your 2nd degree before overlap trims the count, and every one of them shares at least one connection with you. That shared connection is what makes an introduction possible.
What 3rd+ means on LinkedIn
3rd+ means three steps away or more. LinkedIn’s people search prints it next to a 3rd-degree member’s name, and its connection filter offers exactly three choices, 1st, 2nd and 3rd+, the last of which also takes in everyone further out. A member outside your network may show no badge at all, and regular search has no way to ask for the 3rd degree on its own.
Read the badge as “no connection in common”. None of a 3rd-degree member’s connections is one of yours, so there is nobody to ask for an introduction, and the same holds for everyone further out.
Sales Navigator splits the space differently: its connection filter separates 1st, 2nd, fellow group members, and 3rd-degree and beyond. A single profile read from a connected account goes further and tells the 3rd degree apart from out of network.
What each degree lets you do
The degree is also a permission, and it shows in four places.
- Messaging. A direct message needs a 1st-degree connection. Anyone further out takes an InMail, which spends a paid credit, a free message where the member runs an Open Profile, or a note on an invitation. Volume and InMail credits are on LinkedIn message limits.
- Invitations. An accepted invitation turns a 2nd or 3rd-degree member into a 1st and moves their connections into your 2nd degree. Invitations run under a weekly ceiling of roughly 100 on free and Premium accounts and 150–200 on Sales Navigator, covered in full on LinkedIn connection request limits.
- Contact details. Members choose who sees their contact details, for example only their 1st and 2nd-degree connections. France’s data protection authority fined Kaspr EUR 240,000 in December 2024 partly for collecting details limited that way.
- Search allowance. Browsing your own 1st-degree connections does not spend LinkedIn’s monthly commercial use limit, while filtered people search does. What counts and when it resets is on LinkedIn search limits.
Whose degree it is
A degree belongs to a pair: the member and the account looking at them. One profile can read 1st, 2nd and 3rd+ from three accounts on the same team. It also moves whenever a connection is added or removed.
With several accounts, that decides routing: only an account with a 1st-degree connection can send the direct message, so each action belongs on the account closest to the person.
GTM API is built on that pairing. It runs search, invitations and messages under LinkedIn accounts you connect, so every degree it reports is one account’s view. Its check-degree call returns 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4_plus for one person from the account you name, and the contact-details lookup runs only from an account already connected to the person.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does 3rd+ mean on LinkedIn?
It means the member is three or more steps from you and shares no connection with you. LinkedIn’s people search prints 3rd+ next to a 3rd-degree member’s name, and its connection filter offers only 1st, 2nd and 3rd+, which also takes in everyone further out. Reaching them takes an invitation, an InMail, or a free message if they run an Open Profile.
Can I message a 2nd-degree connection on LinkedIn?
Not with a direct message, which needs a 1st-degree connection. You can send an invitation with a note, ask the connection you share for an introduction, send an InMail with a paid credit, or message them for free if they have an Open Profile. Once they accept an invitation they become 1st-degree and a direct message opens.
How do I see someone’s connection degree on LinkedIn?
LinkedIn prints it beside the member’s name, in search results and on their profile, and a member outside your network may show none. The badge is counted from the account you are signed in to, so a colleague looking at the same profile can see a different degree.
Are LinkedIn group members part of my network?
They are close in a different way. A shared group changes nobody’s degree, which counts accepted connections only, but it opens a messaging route, and Sales Navigator’s connection filter lists fellow group members as a category of their own.
Is there a limit on LinkedIn connections?
Yes. An account can hold at most 30,000 1st-degree connections, and that ceiling never resets. The pace is limited separately: roughly 100 invitations a week on free and Premium accounts and 150–200 on Sales Navigator, counted over a rolling 7-day window.
Sources & Further Reading
- LinkedIn / Microsoft Learn, Connections API (the quoted line on 2nd-degree connections and the approved-apps restriction), read 22 October 2026
- CNIL, data scraping: KASPR fined EUR 240,000 (the finding on details limited to 1st and 2nd-degree connections), read 11 September 2026
- EDPB, data scraping: French Supervisory Authority fined KASPR EUR 240 000 (the fine and the 5 December 2024 decision), read 22 October 2026
- gtm-api.com, people and company search (the connection filters and the degree badge on a search card)
- gtm-api.com, check connection degree (one person’s degree from the account you name, 3rd and 4_plus told apart)
- Related: LinkedIn message limits · LinkedIn connection request limits · LinkedIn search limits · LinkedIn profile data API · Is Sales Navigator worth it
Work the network from the account that is closest.
Search, enrichment, invitations and messages on LinkedIn accounts you connect, each degree read from that account’s position. On that stack, gtm-api.com runs 20,000+ accounts with under 1% of them ever restricted. Free plan, then from $10 per account at volume.
Last updated: October 2026 · Definitions and benchmarks verified at time of publication