New Delhi: A big change is about to come for people who dream of earning money by making videos. YouTube has announced changes to the rules of its partner program. The new rules will come into effect from 1 February 2027. Along with this, the company has also made major changes in the rules of video view count. The change in view count will start from 24th August 2026.
The biggest change is for those who will start a new channel in the future and want to earn from ads. Now just getting 1,000 subscribers will not be enough. New creators will have to garner more watch time or shorts views than before. Until now, to qualify for ad and premium revenue, creators needed 1,000 subscribers along with 4,000 valid public watch hours in the last 12 months or 10 million public Shorts views in the last 90 days.
But from February 1, 2027, new applicants will need 1,000 subscribers with 8,000 qualifying watch hours or 20 million qualifying shorts views in 90 days. This means that for those making long videos, the watch time requirement will double and for shorts creators, the target of views will also increase significantly. This change does not mean that creators who are already included in the Partner Program will be excluded.
This rule will apply to new creators
The new rules will mainly apply to those creators who make new applications for ads and premium revenue after February 1, 2027. The status of channels already included in the program will not be affected by this change. However, there is also relief for small creators. The entry rules for Fan Funding, Channel Membership, Super Chat, Shopping and some other features are not changing at present. The existing baseline of 500 subscribers and 3,000 watch hours or 3 million Shorts views will remain in place for access to these services.
Will earnings from shorts increase or decrease?
There is also a big change for those earning from shorts. From February 1, 2027, a channel will have to maintain 10 million Shorts views in the last 90 days to get ads and premium revenue from the Shorts Creator Pool. If a channel goes below this level, it will not be out of the partner program, but will not get shorts ads and premium revenue share during that period. Monetization from longer videos and other eligible features may continue.
Change in view count from 24th August
The interesting thing is that YouTube has recently announced to change the way of counting views. From August 24, 2026, as soon as a video starts playing, it will be considered a public view. With this, the views on the video can increase rapidly. But one important thing has to be understood here. More views does not mean that monetization will be easier to achieve. Separate qualified or engaged metrics will continue to be used for earnings and partner program eligibility. That is, in the future, it may seem easy to get millions of views on a video, but it will not guarantee earnings. New creators will have to stop people on videos. Watch time will be more important in longer videos and actual, qualified views will be more important in shorts.
According to the company, these changes have been made keeping in mind the rapidly increasing video consumption and different types of creator models on the platform. Besides, the company is also talking about bringing new earning opportunities and incentive programs. Starting a new YouTube channel in 2027 won't be the same as before. Creating a channel is still free. Uploading videos is also easy. But the path to start earning from ads quickly by just uploading a few videos is going to be difficult.