How to add small red dot in UITabBarItem

That is very simple in current iOS versions

tabBarItem.badgeValue = " "

it shows the red dot on the top of the tabbar item

you can try this method:

func addRedDotAtTabBarItemIndex(index: Int) {

    for subview in tabBarController!.tabBar.subviews {

        if let subview = subview as? UIView {

            if subview.tag == 1314 {
                subview.removeFromSuperview()
                break
            }
        }
    }
    let RedDotRadius: CGFloat = 5
    let RedDotDiameter = RedDotRadius * 2

    let TopMargin:CGFloat = 5

    let TabBarItemCount = CGFloat(self.tabBarController!.tabBar.items!.count)

    let HalfItemWidth = CGRectGetWidth(view.bounds) / (TabBarItemCount * 2)

    let  xOffset = HalfItemWidth * CGFloat(index * 2 + 1)

    let imageHalfWidth: CGFloat = (self.tabBarController!.tabBar.items![index] as! UITabBarItem).selectedImage.size.width / 2

    let redDot = UIView(frame: CGRect(x: xOffset + imageHalfWidth, y: TopMargin, width: RedDotDiameter, height: RedDotDiameter))

    redDot.tag = 1314
    redDot.backgroundColor = UIColor.redColor()
    redDot.layer.cornerRadius = RedDotRadius


    self.tabBarController?.tabBar.addSubview(redDot)
}

set the badgeValue for your desired UITabBarItem as follow:

    // for first tab
    (tabBarController!.tabBar.items!.first! as! UITabBarItem).badgeValue = "1"

    //for second tab
    (tabBarController!.tabBar.items![1] as! UITabBarItem).badgeValue = "2"

    // for last tab
    (tabBarController!.tabBar.items!.last! as! UITabBarItem).badgeValue = "final"

for remove a badge from the UITabBarItem just assign nil

(tabBarController!.tabBar.items!.first! as! UITabBarItem).badgeValue = nil

you can get the output Like

for additional information please ref this link

Choice --2

    var lbl : UILabel = UILabel(frame: CGRectMake(225, 5, 20, 20))
    lbl.layer.borderColor = UIColor.whiteColor().CGColor
    lbl.layer.borderWidth = 2
    lbl.layer.cornerRadius = lbl.bounds.size.height/2
    lbl.textAlignment = NSTextAlignment.Center
    lbl.layer.masksToBounds = true
    lbl.font = UIFont(name: hereaddyourFontName, size: 13)
    lbl.textColor = UIColor.whiteColor()
    lbl.backgroundColor = UIColor.redColor()
    lbl.text = "1"  //if you no need remove this

    // add subview to tabBarController?.tabBar
    self.tabBarController?.tabBar.addSubview(lbl)

the output is

If you want to avoid traversing subviews & potentially dangerous hacks in general, what I've done is set the badge's background colour to clear and used a styled bullet point to appear as a badge:

tabBarItem.badgeValue = "●"
tabBarItem.badgeColor = .clear
tabBarItem.setBadgeTextAttributes([NSAttributedStringKey.foregroundColor.rawValue: UIColor.red], for: .normal)

This seems more future-proof than the other answers.