# rpk topic delete

> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.redpanda.com/llms.txt). Component-specific: [cloud-data-platform-full.txt](https://docs.redpanda.com/cloud-data-platform-full.txt)

---
title: rpk topic delete
latest-operator-version: v26.2.1
latest-console-tag: v3.9.0
latest-connect-version: 4.104.0
latest-redpanda-tag: v26.2.1
docname: rpk/rpk-topic/rpk-topic-delete
page-component-name: cloud-data-platform
page-version: master
page-component-version: master
page-component-title: Cloud
page-relative-src-path: rpk/rpk-topic/rpk-topic-delete.adoc
page-edit-url: https://github.com/redpanda-data/cloud-docs/edit/main/modules/reference/pages/rpk/rpk-topic/rpk-topic-delete.adoc
page-git-created-date: "2024-07-25"
page-git-modified-date: "2026-05-26"
---

<!-- Source: https://docs.redpanda.com/cloud-data-platform/reference/rpk/rpk-topic/rpk-topic-delete.md -->

Delete one or more Kafka topics.

This command deletes all requested topics, printing the success or fail status per topic.

The `--regex` flag (`-r`) opts into parsing the input topics as regular expressions and deleting any non-internal topic that matches any of the expressions. Each expression is wrapped with `^` and `$`, so it must match a whole topic name rather than part of one. Anchoring does not make broad expressions safe: `.*` still matches, and deletes, every non-internal topic.

The topic list command accepts the same input regex format as this delete command. To check what your regular expressions will delete before actually deleting them, check the output of `rpk topic list -r`.

> ⚠️ **CAUTION**
>
> Deleting a topic is irreversible and removes all data in the topic.

## [](#usage)Usage

```bash
rpk topic delete <topics...> [flags]
```

## [](#examples)Examples

This section provides examples of how to use `rpk topic delete`.

### [](#delete-specific-topics)Delete specific topics

Delete topics `foo` and `bar`

```bash
rpk topic delete foo bar
```

### [](#delete-with-regex)Delete with regex

Delete topics starting with 'f' or ending in 'r'

```bash
rpk topic delete -r '^f.*' '.*r$'
```

Delete all topics (use with caution)

```bash
rpk topic delete -r '.*'
```

## [](#flags)Flags

| Value | Type | Description |
| --- | --- | --- |
| --format | string | Output format (json,yaml,text,wide,help). (New in v26.2.1) |
| -r, --regex | bool | Treat topic names as regular expressions and delete all matching topics. Use with caution. |

## [](#global-flags)Global flags

| Value | Type | Description |
| --- | --- | --- |
| --config | string | Redpanda or rpk config file; default search paths are ~/.config/rpk/rpk.yaml, $PWD/redpanda.yaml, and /etc/redpanda/redpanda.yaml. |
| -X, --config-opt | stringArray | Override rpk configuration settings; -X help for detail or -X list for terser detail. |
| --ignore-profile | bool | Ignore rpk.yaml and redpanda.yaml; use default settings. |
| --profile | string | rpk profile to use. |
| -v, --verbose | bool | Enable verbose logging. |