First you need to add this to styles.xml:
<style name="TabLayoutTextStyle"> <item name="android:textSize">16sp</item> <item name="android:textStyle">bold</item> </style>
Even if you do not want to resize the text, you must include it in the styles, otherwise nothing will be shown.
Then the style should be applied to the TabLayout using the app:tabTextAppearance , not style !
<android.support.design.widget.TabLayout android:id="@+id/sliding_tabs" android:layout_width="match_parent" app:tabTextColor="@color/white" app:tabSelectedTextColor="@color/white" app:tabIndicatorColor="@color/accent" android:layout_height="wrap_content" app:tabIndicatorHeight="3dp" app:tabTextAppearance="@style/TabLayoutTextStyle" />
To enable allcaps, you can add the following to TabLayoutTextStyle :
<item name="android:textAllCaps">true</item>
source share