The path to YouTube money just got twice as long. YouTube announced Monday that new creators will need 8,000 watch hours in the past year, up from 4,000, or 20 million Shorts views in 90 days, up from 10 million, before they can start earning from the Partner Program. The change takes effect February 1, 2027, and existing monetized channels are not affected.
What the new requirements mean
Creators who want to begin earning from ads and subscriptions will need 1,000 subscribers plus 8,000 qualified watch hours in the past 365 days, or 1,000 subscribers plus 20 million qualified Shorts views in the past 90 days. The subscriber count stays the same; the watch-time bar is what doubles.
YouTube framed the change as keeping pace with the platform’s growth, noting it now sees over 200 billion daily Shorts views and more than a billion hours of daily watch time on TV. It also said the updated terms will let it introduce new incentive programs aimed at supporting creator growth and different business models.
What happens to Shorts creators
The Shorts bar moves separately. To earn from the Shorts Creators Pool, channels must now maintain 10 million Shorts views over a 90-day period, the same threshold as the old entry requirement. Channels below that stay in the Partner Program and keep earning on long-form content, with Shorts revenue resuming once they cross the line again.
The higher entry bar for new channels and the maintenance requirement for existing ones both push toward the same conclusion: YouTube wants creators who can prove a consistent audience before they get paid, not one viral hit.
Premium Lite and subscription money
The other half of the announcement is revenue, not requirements. YouTube is expanding Premium Lite, its cheaper ad-light tier, to all countries where YouTube Premium is available, with creators sharing a pool representing 60% of net Premium Lite subscription revenue, versus 30% of net regular Premium revenue. YouTube says creators, on average, earn more per Premium subscriber than per ad viewer.
For Philippine creators, the subscription side already has a local anchor: YouTube Shopping launched in the Philippines last year with direct Shopee referrals, giving channels a second income stream that does not depend on watch hours at all. It is the same playbook as Shopee’s Instagram affiliate program, where Filipino creators tag products to earn commissions, except YouTube’s version keeps the money inside the video platform.
What Filipino creators should do now
If your channel is already monetized, nothing changes beyond accepting YouTube’s updated terms. If you are close to the current 4,000-hour threshold, the window to qualify under the old rules is roughly six months, and YouTube has not said it will grandfather channels that were in progress.
If you are starting fresh, the practical math changed: a channel that posted 30 minutes of content a day would have crossed 4,000 hours in about seven months, but needs more than a year at that same pace to hit 8,000. Long-form creators with a library of evergreen content get an easier path, while Shorts-only channels face the steeper climb.
The change also lands as other platforms rework their payouts. X revamped its creator program over the weekend to reward only original content, and Facebook launched its own monetization program earlier this year, meaning the competition for creator attention is tightening across every feed.
Requirements and percentages as announced by YouTube on August 10, 2026, and reported by TechCrunch and YugaTech. Rules are subject to change; check YouTube’s Partner Program policies before planning around them.
