YouTube Music is putting lyrics behind a paywall for free users. After testing this since September, the company is now rolling out the restriction widely across different regions.
Free accounts get five lyric views before hitting the limit. Once you’ve used those up, you’ll only see the first few lines of any song’s lyrics, with the rest blurred out and locked.
A banner appears at the top of the lyrics tab showing how many views you have left and prompting you to upgrade to Premium.
The restriction applies whether you subscribe to YouTube Music Premium at $10.99 per month or the full YouTube Premium at $13.99 monthly. Both plans remove the lyrics limit along with providing ad-free playback, background listening, and offline downloads.
This move comes as YouTube Music tries to close the gap with Spotify, which currently leads the music streaming market globally. Spotify doesn’t restrict lyrics access for free users.
Google recently announced it has over 325 million paid subscriptions across its consumer services, with YouTube Premium seeing strong adoption. In 2025, YouTube pulled in over $60 billion from ads and subscriptions combined.
The rollout isn’t hitting everyone simultaneously. Some free accounts still have unrestricted lyrics access, suggesting Google is deploying the change gradually across different regions.
Reports about the restriction have increased sharply over the past few days on Reddit and other platforms as more users encounter the limit.
