What changes for YouTube creators in February 2027

The YouTube Partner Program is how creators get a share of the ads shown on their videos. In August YouTube announced new rules for it (Newsshooter covered them on 10 August), and they start on 1 Feb 2027. Below are the six things that change, or deliberately do not, taken from YouTube's own help page, and what the 4.5M channels we track look like against the parts our data can see.

Joining takes twice as much watching, but only for new channels#

Today a channel can join once it has 1,000 subscribers and either 4,000 hours of watch time on its long-form videos in the past year or 10 million Shorts views in the past 90 days, according to the current eligibility page. From 1 Feb 2027 new applicants need 8,000 hours or 20 million Shorts views. The subscriber bar stays at 1,000.

Channels already in the program are not touched: YouTube's help page says that a partner's "status is not impacted by this update". The higher bar is a filter on who gets in next, not a review of who is already there.

Shorts earnings get their own bar#

Partners earn from Shorts through what YouTube calls the Shorts Creator Pool. From 1 Feb 2027, a channel earns from that pool in a given month only if it kept 10 million qualified Shorts views over the previous 90 days. Missing it does not remove a channel from the program and does not touch its long-form earnings; it only stops the Shorts share for that month.

That bar is high for most channels that make Shorts. Of the 1.8M channels we track that posted a Short in our 90-day window, about 3% saw those new Shorts reach 10 million views, roughly 52.9K channels. Size matters a lot: about 43% of channels with 10M or more subscribers cleared it, against about 1% of those with under 100K.

Not every view counts#

All of these bars are in "qualified" hours and views. YouTube's Creator Liaison explained the term on the YouTube blog: watch hours count only on public long-form videos, podcasts and archived live streams, never on Shorts. A Shorts view counts only if it is on a public Short and the viewer stayed past the first seconds; replays of a looping Short do not add to it. Views from ads, and anything on a private, unlisted or deleted video, never count.

So the public view count under a video can be higher than what counts toward any of the bars.

"Active" now has a definition#

Today YouTube may turn off monetization on a channel that has not uploaded or posted for 6 months. From 1 Feb 2027 a partner counts as active if it meets any one of three tests: 1,000 watch hours in the past year, 1 million Shorts views in the past 90 days, or 2 long-form videos or 5 Shorts uploaded every 90 days. A channel that falls below gets 90 days to get back over one of them.

Our data can see the last test. Over our 90-day window, about 46% of the channels we rank uploaded nothing we recorded at all. Of those that did upload, about 85% uploaded enough to pass on uploads alone. Counting every channel, big ones pass far more often: about 87% of channels above 10M subscribers, against 43% of those under 100K.

The two other tests are a safety net for channels that stopped uploading but are still watched. An old channel with a back catalogue that still draws 1,000 hours a year stays active without posting anything.

The smaller perks stay where they are#

Fan funding, YouTube Shopping and Creator Partnerships keep their own, lower bar: 500 subscribers and either 3,000 watch hours in the past year or 3 million Shorts views in 90 days. YouTube's help page says these do not change, so a new channel can still start earning from its audience long before it qualifies for ad money.

Partners must accept new terms by 31 Jan 2027#

The rules come with new terms. Partners have to accept them in YouTube Studio by 31 Jan 2027; a channel that does not stops earning from the features they cover from 1 Feb 2027. Accepting does not change a channel's place in the program.

What this means#

For established channels that upload regularly, the main change is the new Shorts bar. The pressure falls on new channels trying to get in, on channels whose Shorts draw views but not in the millions, and on partners that have stopped uploading and whose old videos no longer draw much watch time. For a sense of how many channels slow down or stop, see how many big channels have gone quiet, and compare channels by size and upload habits in the channel directory.