The New Cost of Getting Paid on YouTube

SummaryWhat's changing: Starting February 1, 2027, entry thresholds for new Partner Program applicants double — 4,000 → 8,000 watch hours, or 10M → 20M Shorts views.A new rule for Shorts: Clearing the threshold once is no longer enough — creators now need to maintain 10 million Shorts views every 90 days just to keep earning from the Shorts ad pool.Existing partners are grandfathered in: Current YPP members aren't affected by the new entry bar, but must accept updated terms by January 31, 2027.The trade-off: Premium Lite expands to every country where Premium is available, plus new bonus programs (YouTube Shopping, brand deal incentives, trend-launch bonuses).The reaction: Visible frustration across the smaller-creator community — the "moving the goalposts" critique is already dominating the conversation.YouTube announced its biggest Partner Program overhaul since 2018 this week — and the announcement is a rare case of the platform using its own scale as the justification. The company now sees over 200 billion daily Shorts views and more than a billion hours of daily TV-screen watch time; at that size, YouTube argues, the old thresholds no longer function as a meaningful filter. Th...