YouTube has raised the eligibility requirements for new creators seeking to earn money from advertisements and subscriptions, doubling the number of qualified watch hours needed to enter its monetisation programme. Under the revised rules, creators will need at least 8,000 qualified watch hours over the previous 12 months or 20 million qualified Shorts views within a 90-day period to start earning on the platform.
At present, creators need 1,000 subscribers along with either 4,000 watch hours over the previous year or 10 million Shorts views over 90 days to qualify for monetisation. The changes will take effect from February 1, YouTube announced on Monday. Creators who are already part of the YouTube Partner Program will not be affected by the new entry requirements.
The decision effectively doubles both the watch-hour and Shorts-view requirements for creators seeking to begin earning from their content. While the existing requirement stands at 4,000 qualified watch hours, new creators will now have to accumulate 8,000 hours over a year. Similarly, the Shorts requirement will rise from 10 million qualified views to 20 million views over 90 days. The changes are likely to make it more difficult for smaller and emerging creators to qualify for monetisation, requiring them to build significantly larger audiences before they can start generating revenue through the platform.
YouTube said the changes are being introduced to keep pace with the platform's growth. The company said YouTube now records more than 200 billion Shorts views daily, while viewers watch more than one billion hours of content on televisions every day.
YouTube is also introducing a separate requirement for creators earning through the Shorts Creators Pool. Creators will have to maintain at least 10 million Shorts views during a 90-day period to continue earning revenue through the pool. Channels that fall below the threshold will remain part of the YouTube Partner Program and will still be eligible to earn from their long-form videos. However, their Shorts revenue will be suspended until they once again cross the 10-million-view threshold. The changes could particularly affect creators who primarily rely on Shorts, as they will now need to consistently generate large numbers of views to maintain their earnings from short-form videos.
Alongside the monetisation changes, YouTube announced that it is expanding its lower-cost Premium Lite subscription to all countries where YouTube Premium is currently available. Creators receive a share of subscription revenue based on members' watch time and views. Under YouTube's revenue-sharing structure, long-form video creators receive 55 per cent of the applicable subscription revenue, while Shorts creators receive 45 per cent.
YouTube said creators could potentially benefit from the expansion of its subscription base, noting that partners, on average, earn more when a viewer subscribes to Premium than when the same user watches advertisements. Premium Lite provides an ad-free experience across most videos and also includes features such as offline downloads and background playback.
YouTube's decision comes as major social media platforms revise their creator monetisation and reward programmes amid intensifying competition for popular online creators. The higher thresholds mean new YouTube creators will face a longer path towards monetisation, particularly those who have yet to establish substantial audiences. For existing members of the YouTube Partner Program, however, the new 8,000-hour or 20-million-Shorts-view entry thresholds will not apply.