Is there an exercise that burns only belly fat?

Short answer

No. Six weeks of ab work alone left belly fat unchanged, and training one leg only took fat off the arms and trunk. Belly fat comes off when whole-body exercise lowers fat everywhere.

Is there an exercise that burns only belly fat?
'Ab exercise → belly fat burned → smaller belly' — does this formula hold?
A common claim is that sit-ups and crunches burn belly fat first. The idea is that fat right next to the working muscle gets used first. We checked whether exercise takes fat off only the part you train.
Six weeks of ab work only
Belly fat stayed the same
Out of 24 people, one group did 7 ab exercises, 2 sets of 10, 5 days a week for 6 weeks. Everyone kept eating the same. Curl-ups rose to 47 versus 32 in the group that did not train, but body weight, body fat percentage, waist size and belly skinfold thickness did not differ.
Train one leg for 12 weeks
Fat came off somewhere else
11 people did light leg presses with one leg only, 960 to 1,200 reps per session, 3 times a week for 12 weeks. Total body fat fell 5.1%, but fat in the trained leg did not change. Instead, the arms lost 10.2% and the trunk 6.9%.
104 people trained one arm only
Both arms lost the same fat
104 people strength-trained one arm for 12 weeks. MRI scans of the whole arm showed no difference in fat change between the trained and untrained arm. In men, a caliper pinch at one spot showed more loss in the trained arm, but that gap disappeared when the whole arm was measured.
Adding ab work did take more trunk fat off
But sessions ran 84 minutes, double the time
16 people trained 4 times a week for 10 weeks. One group ran 45 minutes; the other, matched for calories burned, ran 27 minutes and added ab machine work, 84 minutes in total. The ab group lost 697 g more trunk fat, but total fat loss was similar in both groups.
So how does belly fat come off?
It went down when whole-body exercise cut fat overall
An analysis that pooled 43 trials with 3,552 people found cardio, strength training and the two combined all reduced fat under the skin of the belly. A 2025 analysis of 591 people found regular exercisers lost 7.1% of their deep belly fat and 9.1% of the fat under the belly skin.
Bottom line: no exercise picks off belly fat alone
Ab work builds muscle, whole-body work burns fat
Ab exercise alone did not shrink belly fat, and fat came off the whole body no matter which part was trained. An analysis of 18 studies found belly fat dropped most with cardio plus strength training, 3 or more times a week, 60 minutes or more per session. Ab work can be added to build the belly muscles.