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Dear Redditors, a YouTube Premium family plan has always required address verification (Updated)
- Information spreading on Reddit suggests YouTube is implementing some new address verification policy for YouTube Premium family plan subscribers.
- A user of the service recently received an email to verify their address or risk losing access to Premium.
- However, this is a policy YouTube enforced for a while now.
Update: November 16, 2023 (10:53 PM ET): YouTube has now confirmed to Android Authority that subscribers of a YouTube Premium family plan must physically reside in the same household as the family manager. Simply having the same family billing address, as mentioned in the original article below, won’t cut it anymore.
The company also says there’s no other form of residential proof required to show that you’re part of a YouTube Premium family subscription. The platform’s systems “use various signals to flag accounts as needing family plan eligibility verification.” These can include IP address-based restrictions.
Original article: November 16, 2023 (12:02 AM ET): YouTube Premium offers a $22.99/month family plan that allows up to five family members to share the ad-free subscription. It has always required that members using a family plan reside in the same household as the family manager. However, until now, people have been able to get around this restriction and share a YouTube Premium family plan outside of one household. A recent Reddit thread is now creating some confusion about how YouTube enforces this rule.
A Reddit user subscribed to a YouTube Premium family plan posted a screenshot of an email they received from the platform asking them to confirm their address. The email warned the user that their YouTube Premium access could be put on hold if they don’t confirm their address and meet the eligibility requirements for the family plan. The email reiterated that all YouTube Premium family plan subscribers must have the same residential address as the family manager.
Just to be clear. There’s nothing new about this practice. We found another Reddit thread with hundreds of users expressing their contempt for the “new” address verification policy from YouTube, but this has existed for a while now.
YouTube’s support page clearly states the following:
To be eligible to share a YouTube family membership, each family members must live at the same residential address as the family manager. Every 30 days, an electronic check-in will confirm this requirement.
There are multiple reports dating as far back as 2019 of people receiving emails from YouTube to confirm their address for a YouTube Premium family plan. Essentially, family members can use different Wi-Fi networks, but their Google account should use the same family billing address.
Based on information people have been sharing on Reddit and Google’s support forums, changing the billing address and matching it with the family manager’s address is all that’s required to qualify for a YouTube Premium family plan.
It’s unclear if YouTube now requires further address verification with some sort of residential proof to check if a user is indeed part of a family plan. It’s also unclear if the platform is implementing Netflix-like account-sharing restrictions based on IP addresses and Wi-Fi connections. We’ll be reaching out to YouTube for further clarification.