Answers/Getting paid/Is YouTube Raising the Partner Program Threshold to 8,000 Hours? Yes — From 1 February 2027

Getting paid

Is YouTube Raising the Partner Program Threshold to 8,000 Hours? Yes — From 1 February 2027

By Boboy Watson·Last verified September 14, 2026·Getting paid

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In the most-watched video on my channel I said, in passing, that YouTube was about to double its monetization thresholds — 8,000 watch hours instead of 4,000, 20 million Shorts views instead of 10 million, "in February". I did not say which February and I did not say where I read it. When I fact-checked my own transcript against YouTube's Partner Program eligibility page the first time, that page still said 4,000 hours, and I concluded my video was wrong.

It was not. The change is real, it is on YouTube's own site, and it is dated. It just lives on a separate page — "Changes to the YouTube Partner Program" — that the eligibility page links to in a banner at the top. This page lays out exactly what YouTube has published, with the dates, so nobody has to take a sentence in a vlog on faith the way I nearly made you. Everything below was read from support.google.com on 14 September 2026. I am an artist reporting what YouTube publishes, not a lawyer or an accountant.

What are the Partner Program thresholds today?

Until 31 January 2027, the published entry bar for the YouTube Partner Program is unchanged. From YouTube's eligibility page, a channel becomes eligible for YPP with either:

1. 1,000 subscribers with 4,000 qualified watch hours in the last 12 months, or
2. 1,000 subscribers with 10 million qualified Shorts views in the last 90 days.

The other requirements sit alongside those numbers: follow the channel monetization policies, live in a country where YPP is available, have no active Community Guidelines strikes, have 2-Step Verification on your Google Account, have advanced features access, and have one active AdSense for YouTube account linked to the channel.

Meeting the threshold puts you in a review queue; it does not admit you. YouTube says every channel that meets the numbers goes through a standard review of the channel as a whole, with a decision "typically in about 1 month", and that delays are possible.

What changes on 1 February 2027?

YouTube's update page states it plainly:

"Starting Feb. 1, 2027, YPP entry thresholds for new creators are changing to 8,000 qualified watch hours in the last 365 days, or 20M qualified Shorts views in the last 90 days, in addition to still needing 1k subscribers. If you are already in YPP, your status is not impacted by this update."

Side by side:

Three things are worth reading out of that table rather than skimming past.

The subscriber number does not move. The doubling is on watch time and Shorts views only.

It is an entry bar, not a retention bar. YouTube's own words are that existing partners' status is "not impacted by this update". If you are in the program at 5,000 hours on 1 February 2027, you do not fall out because you are under 8,000. What existing partners do face is the new activity rule below, and the terms deadline.

The clock is the calendar, not your application date. If you are close to 4,000 hours now, the arithmetic says to get in before the end of January 2027. A channel that crosses 4,000 hours in March 2027 is measured against 8,000.

Does the 500-subscriber early-access tier change too?

No. YouTube states:

"There are no changes to the eligibility requirements for fan funding, YouTube Creator Partnerships, or YouTube Shopping. These products will continue to help creators to start their earning journeys even earlier when they reach 500 subscribers and either 3,000 qualified watch hours in the last year or 3M qualified Shorts views in the last 90 days."

So the ladder from February 2027 has a bigger gap in it than it used to: channel memberships, Supers and Shopping open at 500 subscribers and 3,000 hours, and ad revenue plus the Premium share open at 1,000 subscribers and 8,000 hours. For a small music channel the honest reading is that fan funding is the earlier door by a wide margin, and ads are the later one.

What counts as a qualified watch hour?

This is where a lot of channels miscount themselves. From YouTube's eligibility page, qualified watch hours are hours gained from long-form videos you have set public. The following do not count toward the threshold:

• Private videos
• Unlisted videos
• Deleted videos
• Ad campaigns
• YouTube Shorts
• Livestreams that are unlisted, deleted, or not converted to video on demand

The Shorts exclusion is the one that catches music channels. YouTube repeats it twice on the same page: "any qualified watch hours from Shorts views in the Shorts Feed won't count towards the 4,000 qualified public watch hours threshold." A channel with a million Shorts views and a few hundred long-form hours is not close to either route.

Qualified Shorts views, in turn, are views from public Shorts that appear in the Shorts feed, excluding private, unlisted and deleted Shorts, ad campaigns, and image posts in the feed.

The new activity rules — this one does apply to existing partners

Today, YouTube's eligibility page says it "may turn off monetization on channels that haven't uploaded a video or posted to the Posts tab for 6 months or more." From 1 February 2027 that becomes a defined test. YouTube states your channel is considered active if you meet any of:

• 1,000 qualified watch hours in the past 365 days, or
• 1 million qualified Shorts views in the last 90 days, or
• 2 long-form videos or 5 Shorts uploaded every 90 days

And if you drop below, there is now a stated recovery period: "an extended 90-day window to meet either of these requirements to stay in the program" — 1,000 qualified watch hours in 365 days or 1 million Shorts views in 90 days.

For a working musician this is the part of the update to actually plan around, because it is the part that reaches channels already in the program. Two long-form uploads a quarter keeps you active under the third test regardless of how they perform. A channel that stops posting to go make an album and comes back in seven months is the channel this rule is written for. My own channel has been demonetised before, and getting monetisation back is slower than keeping it.

The other February 2027 changes that touch a music channel

The same page announces three more changes that sit next to the threshold and matter to anyone monetising music.

Shorts Creator Pool minimum. "To earn each month from the Shorts Creator Pool, creators will now need to maintain 10M qualified Shorts views over the last 90 days." YouTube adds that missing it does not remove you from YPP and does not affect long-form earnings. Given that Shorts already pay out of a pool with music licensing costs taken first — covered on the five YouTube income streams — this raises the floor under an already thin surface.

Targeted Shorts ads. "If an advertiser targets an ad to a group of five or fewer channels, eligible creators can earn a direct 45% revenue share from those placements," paid on top of the pool. This is the first Shorts revenue YouTube has described that attaches to a channel rather than to the pool.

Premium Lite expansion and the revenue pools. Premium Lite extends to every Premium country, creators share in a pool of 60% of net Premium Lite subscription revenue and 30% of net Premium revenue, and YouTube states that "on average, creators earn more per user from Premium than from ads". The musician-specific catch — Lite still shows ads on music content — is on the YouTube Premium page.

What you have to do by 31 January 2027

Accept the updated terms in YouTube Studio. YouTube's instructions: sign in to Studio, find the terms notification on the dashboard or the Earn tab, select Review for each updated module, tick the box and select Next, and Submit once every module is reviewed.

The consequence of not doing it is precise and worth quoting, because "you'll get kicked out" is what people will tell you and it is not what YouTube says:

"If you don't accept the updated terms by January 31, 2027, you'll stop earning from the associated monetization features beginning February 1, 2027. To regain access to these monetization features you will need to accept the updated terms in YouTube Studio. Your decision to accept these terms does not impact your channel's status in the YouTube Partner Program."

You can accept some modules and not others. Creators who turned on channel memberships or Super Chat before 2023 are also being moved from the old Commerce Product Addendum to the current Commerce Product Module, with the same deadline and no change to thresholds, revenue share or how the products work.

What this does and does not change for a musician's income

The Partner Program gates exactly two of the five ways a musician gets paid on YouTube: ad revenue on your own uploads and the Premium share. It does not gate the other three:

• Recording royalties from YouTube Music, paid by DistroKid, TuneCore or CD Baby for streams of your released tracks, arrive whether or not your channel is monetised.
• Content ID revenue from other people's uploads of your audio runs through your distributor or Content ID partner, not YPP.
• Performance royalties on the composition are collected by ASCAP or BMI from YouTube's licence, and depend on registration, not on subscriber counts.

So a music channel under the new 8,000-hour bar in 2027 is not a channel earning nothing from YouTube. It is a channel earning from three pipes instead of five, which is exactly the situation most independent artists are already in without knowing it. The step that actually costs money to skip is not the Partner Program application — it is releasing through a distributor and registering the composition, which is the order I would do things in.

What I would do this year

1. If you are between 4,000 and 8,000 hours, apply before 31 January 2027. The current bar is published and the new one is dated. There is no version of waiting that helps.
2. If you are already in, accept the modules when the notification appears — all of them, including Shorts Feed Monetization, since Premium revenue for Shorts only flows through it.
3. Put two long-form uploads a quarter in the calendar so the new activity test never comes up, whatever the views do.
4. Stop measuring Shorts as income. Between the pool, the music licensing deduction and the 10-million-view monthly minimum, Shorts are a discovery surface. Measure them by what they send to the surfaces that pay.

I am an artist reporting what YouTube publishes, not a lawyer or an accountant. YouTube's Partner Program terms change; the thresholds and rules above are stated on YouTube's own pages as of 14 September 2026, with the new figures taking effect on 1 February 2027. Nothing on this page is a promise of what a channel will earn.