10 March 2022: Given the recent suspension of Google advertising systems in Russia, we'll be pausing the creation of new Russian accounts on AdSense, AdMob and Google Ad Manager. Additionally, we'll pause ads on Google properties and networks globally for advertisers based in Russia. As a result, creators in Russia won't be able to complete new YPP sign-ups at this time.
3 March 2022: Due to the ongoing war in Ukraine, we will be temporarily pausing Google and YouTube ads from serving to users located in Russia. We're also pausing access to all monetisation features (such as channel memberships, Super Chat, Super Stickers and Merch) for viewers in Russia. Learn more.
25 February 2022: In light of the war in Ukraine, we're pausing YouTube's monetisation of Russian Federation state-funded media channels.
We will continue to actively monitor the situation and make adjustments as necessary.
If you're monetising on YouTube, it's important that your channel follows YouTube monetisation policies. These include policies described below, as well as YouTube's Community Guidelines, Terms of Service, Copyright and Rights Clearance Adjustment policies, and Google AdSense programme policies.
These policies apply to anyone in, or looking to apply to, the YouTube Partner Programme. The YouTube Shorts monetisation policies also apply if you're monetising Shorts on YouTube.
All content monetising with ads must follow our advertiser-friendly content guidelines.
Here's a quick overview of each major policy. Make sure that you read each policy thoroughly, as these policies are used to check if a channel is suitable for monetisation. Our reviewers regularly check to see whether monetising channels follow these policies. Learn more about how we enforce our policies.
Bear in mind that when we use the term video on this page, it refers to Shorts, long-form videos and live streaming. These policies apply wherever videos are viewed, including the watch page (pages within YouTube, YouTube Music or YouTube Kids), the YouTube video player (player that embeds YouTube content on other sites) and the YouTube Shorts player (player that makes Shorts available).
What we check when we review your channel
Our reviewers check content that best represents your channel against our policies. Since our reviewers can't check every video, they may focus on your channel's:
- Main theme
- Most viewed videos
- Newest videos
- Biggest proportion of watch time
- Video metadata (including titles, thumbnails and descriptions)
The above are just examples of content that our reviewers may assess. Please note that our reviewers can and may check other parts of your channel to see whether it fully meets our policies.
Follow the YouTube Community Guidelines
These guidelines help to ensure that YouTube remains a great community for viewers, creators and advertisers. Anyone on YouTube needs to follow our Community Guidelines, and any content that you post must follow all our Community Guidelines.
Monetising creators should know that these guidelines apply not only to individual videos, but also to your channel overall. Content that violates YouTube's Community Guidelines is not eligible for monetisation and will be removed from YouTube.Repetitious content
Repetitious content refers to channels on which the content is so similar that viewers may have trouble spotting the difference between videos on the same channel. This policy is based on the Search Console portion of the AdSense programme policies. We've put it in a context that's more relevant for YouTube creators.
This policy applies to your channel as a whole. In other words, if you have many videos that violate our guidelines, monetisation may be removed from your entire channel.
What is allowed for monetisation
This policy makes sure that monetised content offers viewers something appealing and interesting to watch. In other words, if the average viewer can clearly tell that content on your channel differs from video to video, it's fine to monetise. We know that many channels create content that follows a similar pattern. What's important is that the substance of each video should be relatively varied.
Examples of what is allowed for monetisation (including but not limited to):
- Same intro and outro for your videos, but the bulk of your content is different
- Similar content, when each video talks specifically about the qualities of the subject that you're featuring
- Short clips of similar objects edited together, when you explain how they're connected
Content that violates this guideline
When a channel's content consists of similar content, it can frustrate viewers who come to YouTube for appealing and interesting videos. This means that channels on which content is only slightly different from video to video are not allowed to monetise. In other words, your channel shouldn't consist of content that's automatically created or produced using a basic template.
Examples of what's not allowed for monetisation (this list is not exhaustive):
- Content that exclusively features readings of other materials that you did not originally create, like text from websites or news feeds
- Songs modified to change the pitch or speed but that are otherwise identical to the original
- Similar repetitive content or mindless content with low educational value, commentary or narrative
- Templated, mass-produced or programmatically generated content
- Image slideshows or scrolling text with minimal or no narrative, commentary or educational value
Reused content
Reused content refers to channels that repurpose someone else's content without adding significant original commentary or educational value. This policy is taken from the AdSense Search Console portion of the AdSense programme policies. We've put it in a context that's more relevant for YouTube creators.
This policy applies to your channel as a whole. In other words, if you have many videos that violate our guidelines, monetisation may be removed from your entire channel.
What is allowed for monetisation
The spirit of this policy is to make sure that we're rewarding creators for original and authentic content that adds value to viewers. If you've put a funny or thoughtful spin on content that you didn't originally create, you've transformed the content in some way. It's fine to have this type of content on your channel, but individual videos may be subject to other policies like copyright. In other words, we allow reused content if viewers can tell that there's a meaningful difference between the original video and your video.
Examples of what is allowed for monetisation (including but not limited to):
- Using clips for a critical review
- A scene from a movie in which you've rewritten the dialogue and changed the voiceover
- Replays of a sports tournament where you explain the moves that a competitor did to succeed
- Reaction videos in which you comment on the original video
- Edited footage from other creators in which you add a storyline or commentary
- Remixed content on Shorts where you add original content to a song from our library, or the original audio or video segment from other videos
Content that violates this guideline
Taking someone else's content, making minimal changes and calling it your own original work would be a violation of this guideline. This policy applies even if you have permission from the original creator. Reused content is separate from YouTube's copyright enforcement, which means that it's not based on copyright, permission or fair use. This guideline means that sometimes you may not get claims against your content but your channel may still violate our reused content guidelines.
More examples of what's not allowed for monetisation (this list is not exhaustive):
- Clips of moments from your favourite show edited together with little or no narrative
- Short videos that you compiled from other social media websites
- Collections of songs from different artists (even if you have their permission)
- Content uploaded many times by other creators
- Promotion of other people's content (even if you have permission)
If your channel has 'Made for Kids' content, we'll use YouTube's quality principles for children's and family content to determine the monetisation status of that content.
If a channel is found to have a strong focus on low-quality 'Made for Kids' content, it may be suspended from the YouTube Partner Programme. If an individual video is found to violate these quality principles, it may see limited or no ads.
When checking to see if your 'Made for Kids' content is of low or high quality, nuances and context are important. Visit our best practices for children's and family content page for guides and examples.
Application of quality principles for monetisation eligibility
There are several low-quality principles that may affect the overall quality of a particular video. We will consider each principle as a factor for monetisation eligibility on a rolling basis. We currently enforce against the low-quality principles for children's and family content listed below. We may increase the scope to include more quality principles over time.
- Encouraging negative behaviours or attitudes: Content that encourages dangerous activities, wastefulness, bullying, dishonesty or a lack of respect for others (e.g. dangerous/unsafe pranks, unhealthy eating habits).
- Heavily commercial or promotional: Content that is primarily focused on purchasing products or promoting brands and logos (e.g. toys and food). It also includes content that is focused on excessive consumerism. Learn more about overly commercial content for YouTube Kids.
- Deceptively educational: Content that claims to have educational value in its title or thumbnail, but actually lacks guidance or explanation or is not relevant to children. For example, titles or thumbnails that promise to help viewers 'learn colours' or 'learn numbers', but instead the video features inaccurate info.
- Hindering comprehension: Content that is thoughtless, lacks a cohesive narrative or is incomprehensible, such as having inaudible audio. This type of video is often the result of mass production or auto-generation.
- Sensational or misleading: Content that is untrue, exaggerated, bizarre or opinion-based and may confuse a young audience. It might also include 'keyword stuffing' or the practice of using popular keywords of interest to children in a repetitive, altered or exaggerated way. The keywords may also be used in a way that does not make sense.
Creator responsibility
Creator integrity
We expect creators in the YouTube Partner Programme to be who they say they are and not misrepresent themselves by manipulating their on-platform activity or engaging in deceptive practices.
This means that creators should not artificially inflate a channel's engagement, such as views, subs, likes, watch time and ad impressions. Similarly, creators should not encourage organic engagement on non-compliant content before deleting or obfuscating that content for the purpose of becoming eligible for the YouTube Partner Programme. Engaging in this type of behaviour may result in removal from the YouTube Partner Programme or termination of your channels. See our AdSense policy for more info.
Creators should also not mislead users or YouTube by participating in financially abusive behaviours, such as using our monetisation features for illegal, fraudulent or deceptive transactions. If you violate this policy, we may remove you from the YouTube Partner Programme or terminate your channels.
YouTube is constantly changing and improving the service whilst adapting to the world around us. We may need to make changes to the Terms and Conditions or policies that apply to your use of the service – including the Terms of Service and the YouTube Partner Programme terms, our policies and other contractual documents – to reflect changes to our service or for legal, regulatory or security reasons.
We'll let you know in writing when we make changes that might impact you. If you do not agree to the modified terms, you may stop using the relevant feature or terminate your agreement with us.
To help you stay up to date with our policies, we also maintain a permanent log of updates. View our change log here.
How we enforce YouTube monetisation policies
Anyone who earns money on YouTube must follow YouTube's Channel Monetisation Policies. If you violate any of our policies, YouTube may take any of the actions outlined below.
We may withhold or adjust any of your revenue associated with violations of the YouTube Channel Monetisation Policies. We may also offset such amounts against future revenue payable to you.
For any such violations, we need some time to investigate whether the revenue needs to be withheld, adjusted or offset. This may result in payment delays of up to 90 days or until we've resolved any third-party rights disputes.
Examples of violations where we might need to withhold or adjust your revenue include (but aren't limited to) instances of invalid traffic on your content, fake engagement or Content ID claims.
We'll inform you in writing by email or in product when we have to enforce our policies. We will also let you know what options are available to you.
Limit ad revenue from your videos
As a member of the YouTube Partner Programme, you can make your videos eligible to earn ad revenue if they meet our advertiser-friendly content guidelines. However, if your videos are found to not meet our advertiser-friendly guidelines, or if they violate other policies, such as our age restriction or copyright guidelines, your videos may earn limited or no ad revenue.
For more information about reasons why content may not be eligible for monetisation, see: Monetisation icon guide for YouTube Studio
Violation of our YouTube Channel Monetisation Policies may result in monetisation being suspended or permanently disabled on all or any of your accounts. If it's determined that your channel is no longer eligible for monetisation, your channel may lose access to all monetisation tools, features and modules associated with the YouTube Partner Programme. You may also choose to opt out of specific monetisation modules at any time by contacting Creator Support.
Data retention
If your monetisation agreement with YouTube is terminated, you'll still be able to request your YouTube Analytics data from the time that you were in the programme by contacting Creator Support.
Suspend or even terminate your YouTube channel
In exceptional circumstances, we may need to terminate a channel or account, or disable a user's access to the service in order to protect the integrity of the platform or protect our users from harm. Learn more about channel terminations and disabled Google accounts, including what you can do if you believe that your channel or account was terminated by mistake.
How we'll inform you of actions that affect your monetisation
We'll inform you in writing by email or in product when we have to enforce our policies. We will also let you know which options are available to you.
How to get help with issues that affect you
If you're in the YouTube Partner Programme, you can get access to our Creator Support team.
Whether you're facing a specific problem or you want to find out how to get the most out of YouTube as a creator, we're here to help you:
- Optimise how you use YouTube
- Get tips on technical or service aspects of YouTube
- Find out how to navigate policy and copyright guidelines
- Get answers on account and channel management questions
- Resolve Content ID and rights management issues
- Troubleshoot and fix bugs or issues with your account
You can find more detailed instructions on how to contact Creator Support and how to get help as a YouTube creator.