Tboli is spoken by about 100,000 people, most of whom live in the Southern Philippines, with the main population residing in the SOCCSKSARGEN region: the Sarangani province, Katabau and west to the provincial border on Celebes seacoast; the South Cotabato province, the Mount Busa area and to the west; the Sultan Kudarat province, the Bagumbayan municipality, and the Kraun area.

The ethnologue code is tbl. Alternate names for this group are T'boli and Tiboli. The classification of the language is Austronesian, Malayo-Polynesian, Bilic, Tboli. There are three dialects of Tboli: Central Tboli, Western Tboli, and Southern Tboli.

The Tboli people highly value their language and use it in neighboring towns and on buses. Many are multilingual in English, Filipino, and Hiligaynon. The literacy rate is 50%-60%. Literature has been written in the language as well as a dictionary, grammar, texts and the Bible, all with Latin script.