YouTube Music restricts full lyrics to paid subscribers

YouTube Music has begun widely rolling out a paywall for song lyrics, requiring users to subscribe to a paid plan to view them in full, according to a report by 9to5Google.

Under the change, lyrics are now available only to users with a YouTube Premium or YouTube Music Premium subscription.

On the Now Playing screen, the lyrics tab shows a notice stating how many free views remain, along with a prompt to unlock lyrics with a paid plan.

Users are allowed up to five free lyric views. After that limit is reached, only the first few lines of a song’s lyrics are visible, while the rest are blurred and cannot be scrolled.

Google has been testing the lyrics paywall for several months. The feature now appears to be rolling out more broadly to users worldwide.

Earlier this week, Google said it has more than 325 million paid subscriptions across its consumer services, including YouTube Premium and Google One. The company also reported that YouTube advertising and subscription revenue exceeded $60 billion in 2025.