YouTube has announced plans to double the entry thresholds for its Partner Program starting February 1, 2027, marking the first major overhaul of the monetisation programme since 2018 and raising the bar significantly for aspiring content creators in Nigeria and across the globe.
New applicants will need either 8,000 qualified public watch hours in the preceding 365 days or 20 million qualified Shorts views in the previous 90 days, up from the current 4,000 hours or 10 million views. The 1,000-subscriber requirement remains unchanged.
The platform also introduced a separate ongoing requirement affecting all creators: channels must sustain 10 million qualified Shorts views within a rolling 90-day window to keep earning ad and subscription revenue from Shorts specifically. Channels that fall below this threshold remain in the Partner Program and continue earning from long-form video, with Shorts revenue sharing resuming automatically once the threshold is met again.
Brandspur Brand News gathered that existing YouTube Partner Program members will not be affected by the new entry thresholds but must accept updated programme terms in YouTube Studio by January 31, 2027, to continue monetising their content.
YouTube framed the changes as a move to reward sustained engagement over raw view volume, citing more than 200 billion daily Shorts views and over a billion hours of daily television viewing on the platform. The company said it expects to pay creators more overall in 2027 than in 2026 but did not disclose specific payout projections or estimate how many creators would be affected.
Alongside the entry and Shorts changes, YouTube is expanding its lower-cost Premium Lite subscription tier to every country where YouTube Premium is available. Creators earn a 30 percent share of net subscription revenue from standard Premium and 60 percent from Premium Lite, split 55 percent for long-form video and 45 percent for Shorts. The company also plans new incentive programmes tied to YouTube Shopping, brand deals, and trend participation, with details to be announced later.
The changes carry particular weight for Nigeria, Africa’s largest single market for YouTube ad revenue. YouTube AdSense paid Nigerian creators more than $10 million in 2024, according to creator-economy research firm Contemeleon, even though YouTube holds an estimated 6.8 percent platform market share across Africa, behind Facebook and TikTok.
Nigeria accounts for roughly 40 percent of the value of Africa’s creator economy, according to data compiled by Coachli and TechCabal. Yet the African Creator Economy Report 2.0 found that six in ten surveyed creators earn less than $100 a month, with direct platform payouts accounting for about 11 percent of income even among top earners. Product sales and brand sponsorships make up a larger share of creator revenue.
For Nigerian creators building channels from scratch, the doubled thresholds represent a steeper climb to monetisation. The previous 4,000 watch-hour requirement already posed a significant hurdle for many; 8,000 hours demands sustained audience engagement that may take months or years to achieve.
YouTube has not issued a Nigeria- or Africa-specific statement on the changes beyond its global announcement. No Nigerian creator association or individual creator has issued public comment on the changes at the time of this report, and YouTube has not published country-level data indicating how many Nigerian channels currently qualify for Shorts revenue sharing or how many may fall short of the new threshold.
