YouTube Stops Shorts Pay Below 10 Million Views From February 2027

YouTube said on August 10 that from February 1, 2027, a channel will need 10 million qualified Shorts views over the previous 90 days to share in Shorts ads and subscription revenue. The company's blog post presents the change as a rewrite of how Shorts money is distributed, not as a change to who is in the YouTube Partner Program.

This is not an upload ban, and it is not a removal from YPP. YouTube said channels below the line "remain in YPP and continue earning on long-form content," with Shorts revenue sharing "automatically resuming" once they cross 10 million views again. YouTube's Help page is more specific: the 10 million figure is the test "to earn each month from the Shorts Creator Pool."

A separate rule hits only new applicants. From the same date, YouTube said, new creators applying for ads and Premium revenue sharing will need 8,000 qualified watch hours in the last 365 days or 20 million qualified Shorts views in the last 90 days. YouTube's current Help pages still list 4,000 hours or 10 million Shorts views, plus 1,000 subscribers. That doubles both performance bars. The Help article on the 2027 changes says the 1,000-subscriber requirement remains. YouTube said the entry update "won't impact creators already in YPP."

The 10 million Shorts floor is different. It applies to channels already inside the program. YouTube did not say how many of the "over 3 million" YPP channels it claims currently sit under that line.

Partners must accept the updated terms in YouTube Studio by January 31, 2027, or "stop earning from the associated monetization features beginning February 1, 2027," YouTube's Help page said. Missing the deadline does not remove a channel from YPP. Earnings from the unsigned modules resume when the terms are accepted. The August 10 blog mentioned Studio terms and the February 1 effective date but did not print the January 31 cutoff.

YouTube is also expanding Premium Lite to every country where it already sells YouTube Premium. The blog said creators are paid from dedicated pools equal to 30% of net Premium subscription revenue and 60% of net Premium Lite, then 55% of that allocation for long-form and 45% for Shorts. Those percentages are the pool and the subsequent creator share, not a 55% cut of a subscriber's fee.

For channels under the Shorts floor, YouTube promised "new incentive programs" — Shopping bonuses, brand-deal incentives, and "earnings boosts for starting and growing trends" — and said it would "share more details soon." It did not price them, date them, or say how many channels they are meant to cover. It also said it expects to "pay even more to creators in 2027 than we did in 2026," an aggregate claim with no per-channel figure attached.