YouTube's latest change could be bad news for your favorite creator

Aug 10, 2026 — 4:49 PM ET

• YouTube is raising its requirements for creators joining its Partner Program.
• Effectively doubling minimum views, the new rules are set to take effect in February.
• YouTube is also expanding access to Premium Lite subscriptions.

Everybody hates YouTube ads, right? For all the time you may spend grumbling about them, trying to block them, or complaining about how much it costs to eliminate them, it can be easy to forget that these ads are what make it possible for your favorite creators to support themselves and continue to produce the videos you love. But now YouTube’s got some big changes coming to how it compensates creators, and there’s the chance we could see some real-world fallout from the adjustments.

When you’re making videos for YouTube, the dream is to be accepted into the YouTube Partner Program, opening your account up to revenue sharing while getting you access to all of YouTube’s latest and greatest features. But Google also gatekeeps this honor, limiting it to creators who pass certain performance and engagement thresholds. And today YouTube shares that it’s seriously raising the bar for entry.

Right now, the Partner Program offers two different tiers, and the top one offering revenue sharing requires creators to have 1,000 subscribers, and rake in 4,000 watch hours over the course of the past year — or 10M Shorts views over the past 90 days.

Going forward, Google’s changing several things here. For one, it’s splitting how ad-money earning works across long-form video and Shorts, and creators won’t automatically qualify for both just by hitting one threshold — they’ll have to keep hitting minimal Shorts targets to earn there.

But the bigger news is arguably about who’s even eligible for this Partner Program tier in the first place — starting in February of next year, Google’s doubling its requirements for Partners. That means channels will need to show 8,000 view hours a year, or get 20M Shorts views over a span of 90 days.

The good news is that YouTube’s not looking to kick anybody out — not all the way out, anyhow. Existing Partner Program members will keep their status, although they may lose revenue sharing from Shorts if they fall under 10M views.

But if you’ve been watching a hot new YouTuber building up their fanbase in the hopes of finally “making it big” with the YouTube Partner Program, they may be in for a rude awakening — and a whole lot more work ahead of them.

Finally, Google shares word of an expansion to YouTube Premium Lite. While Premium Lite was previously only available in certain nations (admittedly — a whole lot of them at this point), Google’s now expanding that list to include everywhere you can get full-blown YouTube Premium.