YouTube is raising the bar for new creators. Starting February 1, 2027, joining the YouTube Partner Program will require 1,000 subscribers plus either 8,000 qualified watch hours over the previous 365 days or 20 million qualified Shorts views over the previous 90 days — exactly double the current thresholds of 4,000 hours and 10 million Shorts views. It is the first significant increase since the watch-hour system was introduced in 2018.

Channels already in the program are grandfathered and keep their status. The lower fan-funding tier is untouched: Super Chat, channel memberships and shopping features remain available at 500 subscribers with 3,000 watch hours or 3 million Shorts views. What changes is the gateway to ad and Premium revenue sharing.

There is also a new ongoing performance gate for Shorts earnings. From February 2027, channels must maintain 10 million qualified Shorts views over a rolling 90-day window to keep receiving revenue from the Shorts Creator Pool each month. Falling below that pauses Shorts payouts for the month, though the channel stays in the Partner Program and long-form earnings continue.

YouTube says the program now includes more than 3 million creators and that it paid out over $100 billion to creators, artists and media companies between 2022 and 2025. The company frames the higher bar as keeping pace with platform growth — more than 200 billion daily Shorts views and over a billion hours of daily TV watch time.

For aspiring Shorts creators, the takeaway is calendar math. Twenty million qualified views in 90 days averages roughly 222,000 views per day, every day, for three months. Creators approaching the current 10-million threshold should aim to apply and get approved before February 1, 2027, while the lower bar still applies — and everyone else should treat the fan-funding tier as the realistic first milestone, building memberships and shopping revenue while growing toward full monetization.