New opportunities to earn and changes to the YouTube Partner Program
We’re making important changes to help the YouTube Partner Program remain the leader in the creator economy.
Aug 10, 2026 [[read-time]] minute read
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The YouTube Partner Program (YPP), launched almost 20 years ago, embodies our core belief that YouTube and creators succeed best together. Today, YPP remains the only program that pays creators consistently, transparently, and at scale. With over 3 million creators in the program, we’re making the first significant changes since 2018 to ensure that YPP continues to be the leader in the creator economy by meaningfully rewarding active creators. In fact, we expect to pay even more to creators in 2027 than we did in 2026. Here are the changes:
1. Premium Lite
We are expanding Premium Lite to all countries where we offer YouTube Premium. This subscription offers uninterrupted, offline, and background viewing of most content.
Creators earn money from these subscriptions through a dedicated pool of revenue for each subscription type: 30% of the net subscription revenue for Premium and 60% for Premium Lite. This allocation factors in the costs of operating and promoting the service, including amounts we pay to music partners. This pool is distributed to creators based on member watch time and views, and from that distribution creators receive revenue share: 55% for long-form videos and 45% for Shorts.
With these additional subscribers, creators can expect higher earnings: when a user signs up for Premium, partners, on average, earn more than when the user was watching ads1.
2. YouTube Shorts
We’re updating how we distribute Shorts revenue to reward creators who drive conversation and engagement on YouTube. Creators who already earn significant revenue from Shorts are unlikely to be impacted by these changes.
Beginning February 1, 2027, creators who have 10 million qualified Shorts views over the last 90 days will be eligible for ads and subscription revenue sharing on Shorts. Channels below this threshold remain in YPP and continue earning on long-form content, with Shorts revenue sharing automatically resuming once they cross 10 million views again.
We’re broadening revenue opportunities for creators to reward growth, engagement, and more by introducing new incentive programs, rather than relying solely on ad revenue. For channels below the 10 million view threshold, these initiatives introduce new ways to earn based on hitting certain milestones, like bonuses for YouTube Shopping, incentives for brand deals, and earnings boosts for starting and growing trends. We'll share more details soon.
3. YPP ads and Premium thresholds
To keep pace with the growth of YouTube, which now sees over 200 billion daily Shorts views and over a billion hours of watch time on TV everyday, we are updating the YPP entry requirements for ads and Premium revenue sharing for new creators. This update won't impact creators already in YPP.
New creators applying for YPP will need 8,000 qualified watch hours in the last 365 days, or 20 million qualified Shorts views in the last 90 days. The entry thresholds for our Fan Funding and shopping products remain unchanged.
Taken together, these updates allow us to invest in new incentive programs that directly support creator growth and the many business models that work across YouTube. Creators can review and sign the new terms within YouTube Studio which will take effect on February 1, 2027.
1. Based on 2026 performance.