YouTube Termination Data: Tracker, Ban Waves, Appeals and Policy Changes
Sourced numbers instead of rumors: how many channels YouTube removes, why, when the waves hit and which rules changed – free to reuse under CC BY 4.0.
Short answer
YouTube removed 15,875,020 channels in 2025 and 4,916,314 in the first half of 2026, according to Google’s Transparency Report; spam accounted for most of them. This section compiles the official numbers by quarter and reason, dates the ban waves of 2025–2026, collects every official appeal-outcome figure and logs each policy change that affects terminations.
Key takeaways
- YouTube removed 28,757,086 channels in 2024 and 15,875,020 in 2025, according to Google’s Transparency Report; from Q2 2025 Google counts each channel once.
- Spam was the reason for 84.5% of channel removals in Q2 2026, the latest published quarter as of October 9, 2026.
- There is no official success rate for channel termination appeals; we publish only figures from official sources, with their caveats.
- All data pages can be reused under CC BY 4.0 with attribution to ChannelTerminated and the original source.
Rumors travel fast after a ban wave: “YouTube terminated 12 million creators”, “appeals never work”, “the new spam policy was announced in June”. None of these is accurate. This section collects what the official sources actually say – Google’s Transparency Report, Google’s reports under the EU Digital Services Act and YouTube’s own Help Center – and puts it in tables you can check, quote and reuse.
How many YouTube channels are terminated each year?
YouTube removed 28,757,086 channels in 2024, 15,875,020 in 2025 and 4,916,314 in the first half of 2026, according to Google’s Transparency Report. Most of them were spam channels.
What data does ChannelTerminated publish?
Four datasets, each built from official sources and dated:
| Dataset | What it shows | Main source |
|---|---|---|
| Termination tracker | Channel removals per quarter since 2024, spam share, reasons, videos and comments removed | Google Transparency Report |
| Termination waves | The ban waves of 2025–2026 with dates, search interest and what YouTube said | Transparency Report, Google Trends, press |
| Appeal outcomes | Every official figure on reversals: video appeals, EU complaints, dispute bodies | Google, Google DSA reports, Appeals Centre Europe |
| Policy changelog | Each rule change affecting terminations, strikes and monetization, including unannounced ones | YouTube Help Center, changelog, Wayback Machine |
How do we count?
We take numbers from official sources without adjustment and mark every methodology change – most importantly Google’s switch, from Q2 2025, to counting each channel only once. We say “channels”, not “creators”. Search interest is always labeled as search interest. Press reports are marked as secondary. We never publish our own success rates or use any figure to advertise a product.
Platform-wide numbers describe enforcement at scale. They do not tell you what will happen to your channel. If you were terminated, start with the appeal guide and the reason in your email, not with statistics.
What do the numbers not show?
Official data has blind spots, and quoting it correctly means knowing them. Google’s Community Guidelines report does not include copyright, privacy or other legal removals, so channels terminated for three copyright strikes are missing. It breaks down video removals by country, but not channel removals. It publishes appeal results for videos, not for channels. And as of October 9, 2026, the quarter of the latest search-interest wave – July to September 2026 – had not been published yet.
How to use and cite this data
- Quote the period and the source“In Q2 2026, YouTube removed 2,732,395 channels, according to Google’s Transparency Report.”
- Mention method breaksComparisons across Q2 2025 need the note on Google’s counting change.
- Link the page you usedEach dataset has its own citation line and update date.
- Credit under CC BY 4.0For example: ChannelTerminated, YouTube Termination Tracker, updated October 9, 2026, CC BY 4.0.
For the explanations behind the numbers, see our guides, especially why so many YouTube channels are being terminated.
Enforcement numbers
YouTube Termination Tracker: Channel Removals by Quarter and Reason
How many YouTube channels have been terminated? Quarterly channel removals from Q1 2024 to Q2 2026, the spam share and the reasons, sourced and dated.
Read →YouTube Appeal Outcomes: What the Official Data Shows
Is there a YouTube appeal success rate? What Google’s Transparency Report, EU DSA data and Appeals Centre Europe show about reversals – with every caveat.
Read →YouTube Termination Myths and Misquoted Numbers: 53 Claims Checked (October 2026)
53 common claims about YouTube terminations, appeals, strikes, copyright and lawsuits checked against Help Center, Transparency Report, statutes and courts.
Read →Timelines
YouTube Termination Waves 2025–2026: Timeline and Causes
YouTube ban wave timeline: every termination wave of 2025 and 2026 with dates, search-interest data, official removal numbers and what YouTube said.
Read →YouTube Policy Changelog: Every Rule Change That Affects Terminations
YouTube policy update 2026: every rule change that affects terminations, strikes and monetization since 2023 – dated, sourced, including silent changes.
Read →Frequently asked questions
How many YouTube channels were terminated in 2025?
Google’s Transparency Report lists 15,875,020 YouTube channels removed for Community Guidelines violations in 2025. The widely quoted “12 million” covers only January to September 2025. These are channels, not creators – spam operations often run many channels – and the figure does not include copyright terminations.
Where does this data come from?
From official sources only: Google’s Transparency Report for YouTube, Google’s transparency reports under the EU Digital Services Act, the Appeals Centre Europe transparency report, YouTube’s Help Center and changelog, and archived versions of Help pages. Search-interest data comes from our own Google Trends measurements and is always labeled as search interest, never as terminations.
Can I reuse the data?
Yes. Our compilations are licensed under CC BY 4.0: you may reuse and adapt them, including commercially, as long as you credit ChannelTerminated with a link to the page and name the date. Please also cite the original source, such as Google’s Transparency Report, so readers can check the numbers themselves.
Do you publish success rates for appeals?
No. YouTube publishes no success rate for channel termination appeals, and we do not invent one. Our appeal outcomes page collects the official figures that exist – video appeals, EU complaint data, dispute bodies – with what each one measures. None of them predicts an individual appeal or reflects the effect of any product.
How often is the data updated?
The termination tracker is updated after Google publishes a new quarter; the ban-wave timeline and the policy changelog are reviewed monthly. Every page shows the date of its last update and the retrieval date of the data. The current versions were updated on October 9, 2026, with Q2 2026 as the latest published quarter.
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