YouTube monetization requirements: how to get monetized, and what changes in 2027

YouTube monetization requirements today

The YouTube Partner Program has two levels. The first lets viewers pay you directly. The second is what most people mean by getting monetized: a share of the money from ads on your videos.

• Level 1: fan funding

  • 500 subscribers
  • 3 public uploads in the last 90 days
  • 3,000 watch hours in the last 12 months
  • or 3 million Shorts views in the last 90 days

  Opens channel memberships, Super Chat, Super Stickers, Super Thanks and Shopping features. It doesn't include a share of ad revenue, and its list of countries and regions is shorter than the main program's, so check both.²⁵

  Make money on YouTube

• Level 2: ad revenue

  • 1,000 subscribers
  • 4,000 watch hours in the last 12 months
  • or 10 million Shorts views in the last 90 days

  Adds revenue sharing from ads and from YouTube Premium.² You need one of the two routes, long videos or Shorts, not both.¹

  How much YouTube pays

YouTube counts only qualified watch hours and qualified Shorts views, and its eligibility page lists what is left out.¹

Both windows look back from today, so old hours and views drop out as new ones come in.

The numbers have to be real. The monetization policies forbid artificially inflating views, subscribers, likes or watch time, and a channel that does it can be removed from the program or terminated.⁴

The rest of the checklist

Reaching the numbers is one requirement out of several. The same page lists the others.¹

• The channel follows the channel monetization policies, covered below.
• You live in a country or region where the program is available.
• The channel has no active Community Guidelines strikes. If it has one, you can apply once the strike expires or is removed on appeal.
• 2-Step Verification is turned on for your Google Account.
• The channel has access to advanced features: phone verification plus either enough channel history or an ID or video check.⁶
• One active AdSense for YouTube account is linked to the channel, or you create one from inside YouTube Studio while applying.

How to get monetized on YouTube: the application

You apply in YouTube Studio. These are the steps on YouTube's eligibility page.¹

1. Open Earn in YouTube Studio

   Sign in, open YouTube Studio and choose Earn in the left menu. If the channel isn't eligible yet, select Get notified and YouTube emails you when it reaches a threshold.

2. Accept the base terms

   Select Apply now, then review and accept the Base terms.

3. Connect AdSense for YouTube

   Set up a new AdSense for YouTube account or link the active one you already have.

4. Wait for the review

   The channel goes into a queue. A decision typically comes in about a month, and YouTube warns that delays happen. Dropping under a threshold while you wait doesn't matter. Making videos private or deleting them can affect the application.

5. Turn on what you want

   Once you are approved, you accept the terms for each feature and switch it on in Studio: Watch Page ads, Shorts feed ads, memberships, Supers and more.

If the answer is no, a first-time applicant can appeal within 21 days, or keep uploading original videos and apply again after 30 days. When it wasn't the first application, the wait is 90 days.¹

What the review looks at

Automated systems and human reviewers look at the channel as a whole.¹ They can't watch every video, so YouTube says they may focus on six things.⁴ Read your own channel the same way before you apply.

• Main theme

  A stranger should be able to tell what the channel is about.

• Most viewed videos

  They stand for the channel, so they should clearly be your own work.

• Newest videos

  They show what the channel does now. Don't apply in the middle of an experiment.

• Biggest share of watch time

  Whatever viewers spend the most hours on is judged, even a side project.

• Titles, thumbnails, descriptions

  They should describe the video the viewer actually gets.

• The About section

  Say who makes the channel and how. For a translated version of another channel of yours, name and link the original.

The six headings are YouTube's. The advice under them is ours. YouTube calls them examples and says reviewers may check other parts of the channel.⁴

YouTube monetization rules: reused, repetitive and AI content

The channel monetization policies apply to anyone in the program or applying to it, and they expect content to be your original creation.⁴ Four rules matter most for a channel that reuses footage, works from templates or uses AI.

Reused content

This is material already on YouTube or elsewhere online that a channel republishes without significant commentary of its own, substantive changes, or educational or entertainment value.⁴

Generic or repetitive content

These are videos that look made from a template, or that feel repetitive when a viewer watches several in a row from the same channel. You may know the rule as inauthentic content: a July 15, 2025 notice on the page gave the older repetitious content rule that name and said it covers mass-produced videos. The section itself is now headed generic or repetitive content.⁴

Unsatisfying or off-putting content

These are videos that lean on emotionally manipulative formulas, copy existing formats until they feel interchangeable, or exist to shock for views. Automated tools and templates are fine when the result still shows your own creative vision and has educational or entertainment value.⁴

AI personas on sensitive topics

A channel where an AI-generated persona presents itself as a human expert and gives advice on health, legal issues, finances or politics is not allowed to monetize.⁴

The examples are YouTube's, retold in our words. YouTube adds that copyright and its other policies still apply to the allowed ones, so passing this rule is not permission to use someone else's footage.⁴

What changes on February 1, 2027

YouTube has already published the next version of the program in its Help Center. The entry numbers change for new creators. Channels already in the program keep their status.³

• Channels in the program have to accept the updated terms in YouTube Studio by January 31, 2027. Without that, earnings from the features those terms cover stop on February 1 until you accept. The channel itself stays in the program.³
• From the same date, a channel counts as active with 1,000 qualified watch hours in the past 365 days, or 1 million qualified Shorts views in the last 90 days, or 2 long-form videos or 5 Shorts uploaded every 90 days. A channel that drops below gets a 90-day window to reach the watch-hour or Shorts-view figure and stay in.³
• To earn from the Shorts Creator Pool in a given month, a channel has to keep 10 million qualified Shorts views over the last 90 days. Missing that doesn't remove it from the program or touch its long-form earnings.³
• The same update expands Premium Lite and adds Shorts incentive programs. Neither is an entry requirement.³

Where dubbed videos fit, and where they don't

• An audio track sits on the same video, so there is still one channel to qualify. Adding tracks needs access to advanced features, and YouTube takes an audio-only file for each track,⁷ so you export the audio from the dubbed MP4 in an editor first. Our multi-language audio guide shows the steps.
• A separate language channel is reviewed as a channel of its own,¹ so it needs its own subscribers, hours and application. YouTube's 2027 page doesn't say how a partner's second channel is treated, so plan for the higher numbers if it applies after February 1.³ We compare the two setups in one channel or two.
• YouTube's monetization policies don't mention translations or dubs of your own videos. They do say monetization can be removed when a reviewer can't clearly tell that you made the content.⁴ We go through the cases in can you monetize dubbed videos.
• Cloning your own voice for a dub is on YouTube's list of uses that need no AI disclosure. Realistic AI-generated content and meaningful AI changes do need it, and consistently skipping a required disclosure can lead to suspension from the program.⁸ If other people speak in the video, get their consent first.

DubSync's part ends with the dubbed file. You upload a finished video (MP4, MOV or M4V, up to 150 minutes and 1 GB), choose one of 28 languages, see the minutes and the cost, and download an MP4 with a voice created from each speaker and your background audio kept. It is paid per input minute. It doesn't upload to YouTube, and it has no effect on whether a channel is accepted.

After you join: what monetized means in practice

• Ads are not automatic on every video. Each upload is still measured against the advertiser-friendly content guidelines, which cover the video, the thumbnail, the title, the description and the tags.⁹
• Partners receive 55% of the net revenue from ads on their long-form watch pages¹⁰ and keep 45% of the Shorts revenue allocated to them.¹¹ A share is not an amount: YouTube states that the partner agreement carries no guarantee about how much, or whether, you are paid.¹⁰
• What those ads are worth depends on the viewer. YouTube notes that CPM, the amount advertisers spend per 1,000 ad impressions, varies by geography.¹² It is not what a creator receives. Compare ad rates by country or try your own views in the calculator.
• Payment has its own paperwork. Every monetizing creator has to submit U.S. tax info in AdSense for YouTube, wherever they live, and Google withholds U.S. tax on earnings from viewers in the United States.¹⁰
• Keep publishing. Today YouTube may turn monetization off on a channel with no upload and no post for 6 months or more,¹ and from February 1, 2027 the activity rule above puts numbers on it.³

Questions before you start