YouTube cracks down on Premium Family sharing with non-family users

If you’re paying for a YouTube Premium account, you need to be extra careful going forward. According to initial reports, Google is apparently taking increased action against account sharing, and the company has reportedly already sent some emails to account holders who are sharing premium benefits with people who don’t live in the same household.

According to YouTube’s official guidelines, this has been prohibited since 2023, back when Netflix introduced stricter rules against password sharing, prompting other streaming services to follow suit.

There have also been repeated reports of YouTube cancelling cheap subscriptions from abroad—which were often subscribed to using a VPN service—without warning. This is particularly annoying for anyone who would otherwise be unable to afford YouTube Premium yet is still willing to pay YouTube something for the privilege of premium features.

14-day deadline

Affected users who receive an email from YouTube are apparently informed of a 14-day deadline. After this period, all premium features (such as ad-free viewing and offline downloads) will be cancelled, regardless of how much time actually remains on the subscription.

The YouTube account itself will apparently not be blocked. There’s only talk of blocking the family membership. Presumably, all users (except for the account holder) will be banned if YouTube detects a violation of the household rules.

YouTube checks your location

According to YouTube, it uses location checks with IP addresses and GPS every 30 days to check whether users on a premium plan are in the same household. The respective region is also compared with the account settings in order to expose pricing arbitrage from abroad.

This procedure isn’t yet 100 percent foolproof, as there are still many users who share their premium plans but haven’t yet been caught. Conversely, it’s also possible for legitimate family members to be inadvertently classified as non-household members if they’re away for too long (e.g., due to traveling or studying).

What you can do

If you receive such an email from YouTube but haven’t actually shared your account beyond your household, you can prevent the account block by contacting YouTube support. If you can prove that all users are in the same household, YouTube should lift the block.

Otherwise, if you’ve been caught out, you may want to consider adjusting your subscription. Whereas YouTube Premium Family costs $22.99/month, you might prefer to go individual with YouTube Premium Lite for just $7.99/month. For reference, individual YouTube Premium costs $13.99/month.