Where to find your watch hours and Shorts views in YouTube Studio
The two numbers that decide YPP eligibility are a rolling 365-day watch-hour total and a rolling 90-day Shorts-view total. Here is how to read both correctly.
Before you can work out whether you'll clear the Partner Program bar before it doubles on 1 February 2027, you need two figures from your own channel:
- Public watch hours over the trailing 365 days
- Public Shorts views over the trailing 90 days
Both are in YouTube Studio. Neither is on the default dashboard, and the common mistakes are all about windows and filters rather than about finding the page.
The quickest route: the monetization progress card
If your channel is not yet in the Partner Program, Studio tracks your progress for you. In Studio's left-hand menu, open Earn (it is sometimes labelled Monetization). Channels under the bar get a card showing progress toward the subscriber count and the public watch-hour threshold, usually with the Shorts-view path alongside it.
This card is the authoritative version — it is YouTube's own count of what qualifies, already filtered to public, eligible watch time. If it is showing you a number, use that number rather than one you assemble yourself.
YouTube moves this card around between Studio releases. If you can't find it, the analytics route below gets you the same figures.
The analytics route: a 365-day watch-hour total
In Studio: Analytics → Advanced mode (the button at the top right of the analytics screen), then set the date range to the last 365 days and read the Watch time (hours) total.
Three things to get right:
- The window is 365 days, not "this year." A calendar-year or "since channel started" range is the wrong number. On 13 October, "2026" is nine and a half months of data, not twelve.
- It is a rolling window. The total you read today is not banked. Hours fall out of the back of the window as they age past 365 days, which is why your total can drop in a week when nothing went wrong.
- Only public videos count toward eligibility. Watch time from private, unlisted or deleted videos does not, and an unfiltered analytics total may include time from videos that have since changed visibility.
The analytics route: a 90-day Shorts-view total
Same screen, two changes. Set the date range to the last 90 days, then filter to Shorts — in Advanced mode you can break results down by content type, or use the Shorts tab if your Studio shows one. Read Views, not watch time.
The thing to remember here is that Shorts views and watch hours are separate currencies. Watch time from Shorts does not count toward the watch-hour threshold at all. They are two independent paths to the same door, which is why you read two different metrics over two different windows.
What the numbers mean once you have them
Here is the full set of thresholds those two figures get compared against:
| Until 31 Jan 2027 | From 1 Feb 2027 | |
|---|---|---|
| Subscribers | 1,000 | 1,000 |
| Public watch hours (365 days) | 4,000 | 8,000 |
| or public Shorts views (90 days) | 10M | 20M |
You need the subscriber count plus one of the two paths. Clearing it before 1 February 2027 means being assessed against the left-hand column — half the requirement of the right-hand one.
Rather than eyeballing the gap, paste the three numbers — subscribers, 365-day watch hours, 90-day Shorts views — into the YPP 2027 countdown tool. It reports the gap and the daily pace you need on both paths, before and after the change, and counts the days remaining for you. It runs the arithmetic in your browser on the numbers you type: there is no sign-in and nothing to connect.
If Studio also shows you a 28-day figure for subscribers gained or watch hours gained, add those too — the tool will project your current pace forward to the deadline and tell you whether you land above or below the bar.
Then the harder question
Reading the gap takes five minutes. Closing it is a content problem: which videos earn watch time for your audience, and which ones quietly cost you average view duration. Your own over-performers are the most reliable brief you have, and they're sitting in the same analytics screen.
For the full picture of what changes in February, start with the 2027 YouTube Partner Program requirements, explained, or go straight to the daily pace you need to hit 4,000 and 8,000 watch hours.
Requirements as announced by YouTube on 10 August 2026. Studio's layout and menu labels change from time to time; the monetization progress card under Earn is the most reliable source for your own eligibility count.