YouTube earnings in Africa: Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya and Ghana

Divide your long-form views by 1,000 and multiply by your RPM. That's the whole calculation. A channel with 250,000 views and a $1.00 RPM earned $250. The $1.00 is a test number picked for easy arithmetic: YouTube doesn't publish an RPM for any country, and we won't invent one for yours.

Creators living in all four countries can apply to the YouTube Partner Program, the route to ad revenue. All four were on YouTube's list when we checked on 31 October 2026. The differences are smaller and more practical: Ghana isn't on the list for the 500-subscriber tier, South Africa is paid by EFT, and US tax treatment varies.

Content updated: 31 October 2026

The four countries side by side

Partner Program, payment and tax facts checked 31 October 2026. This table compares program availability, payment options and US tax-treaty coverage, and it isn't a ranking of who earns most.

Country	Currency	On full Partner Program list (ad revenue)	On 500-subscriber tier list (fan funding, Shopping)	Ways to be paid	Payment threshold in YouTube's table	On IRS US tax treaty list
Nigeria	NGN	Yes	Yes	Check, wire	Not listed	No
South Africa	ZAR	Yes	Yes	EFT	R1,000	Yes
Kenya	KES	Yes	Yes	Check, wire	Not listed	No
Ghana	GHS	Yes	No	Check, wire	Not listed	No

Four things that get mixed up

Most bad advice on this topic treats these as one fact. They're four.

Language: what you speak on camera. It isn't among the requirements YouTube lists for the Partner Program, and English doesn't place you in any country.
Creator residence: where you live. YouTube requires you to live in a country or region where the program is available. This decides whether you can join, and it's the only one of the four that does.
Viewer geography: where the people watching are. YouTube says CPMs vary by geography because ad competition differs by location. It doesn't say the same about RPM, so the link to your RPM is our inference: viewer location generally moves the advertising part of it.
Display currency: the unit a number is shown in. Turning $250 into naira changes the label, not the money. Your AdSense reporting currency is a separate thing, and it sets your payment thresholds.

Two Nairobi creators with identical view counts can earn very different sums if one audience is in Kenya and the other is spread across Europe. An eligibility list won't tell you that. Neither will a currency converter.

The formula

Estimated earnings = long-form views ÷ 1,000 × RPM

RPM is your total revenue per 1,000 views, after YouTube's share. It includes ads plus sources such as memberships, Premium, Super Chat and Super Stickers. CPM is a different unit: what advertisers pay per 1,000 ad impressions, before YouTube's share. Put a CPM into this formula and the answer is wrong, partly because not every view carries an ad.

Two worked examples

Both use long-form views only. The RPMs are assumptions chosen to show the arithmetic, not averages for any country. They sit inside the $0.25–$4.00 planning range in our methodology, and that range isn't measured either.

Example 1: one RPM

Views: 250,000 long-form views
Assumed RPM: $1.00

250,000 ÷ 1,000 × $1.00 = $250

That's before tax withholding and any bank or conversion costs. It also holds RPM flat for the whole period, when in practice it moves with advertiser demand and with the share of views that carry ads.

Example 2: viewers in two places

Viewer geography is easier to see with a split. Say 500,000 long-form views break down like this, both RPMs assumed:

300,000 views at an assumed $0.60 RPM: $180
200,000 views at an assumed $4.00 RPM: $800

$180 + $800 = $980, a blended RPM of $1.96

The split is made up for the sum. It doesn't describe a real channel or say which country pays more, and the same limits apply as in example 1. Once you're monetized, YouTube Studio shows your blended RPM directly, so use that rather than guessing.

The same results in local currency

Multiply the US dollar amount by the rate. Rates are the latest we could read from each source on 31 October 2026.

Currency	Local units per US$1	Source	Rate date	Example 1 ($250)	Example 2 ($980)
Nigerian naira (NGN)	1,346.2565	Central Bank of Nigeria, NFEM weighted average	30 October 2026	336,564 NGN	1,319,331 NGN
South African rand (ZAR)	16.6895	European Central Bank cross rate: 18.6455 ZAR ÷ 1.1172 USD per euro	30 October 2026	4,172 ZAR	16,356 ZAR
Kenyan shilling (KES)	129.95	Central Bank of Kenya daily KES rate	30 October 2026	32,488 KES	127,351 KES
Ghanaian cedi (GHS)	11.62	Bank of Ghana mid rate	30 October 2026	2,905 GHS	11,388 GHS

These are illustrations rounded to whole units. Your bank or payment provider applies its own rate and fees, so the amount that reaches your account will differ.

Use your own RPM

Arbahh's calculator has no country preset for Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya or Ghana. Its country list covers Arabic-speaking markets, and its Mixed audience option uses a catch-all factor from that model. Don't read its result as a Nigerian or Ghanaian estimate.

If you're monetized, open the analytics in YouTube Studio, find your RPM and put it in the formula above with your long-form views. It takes a minute and beats any public table, ours included. Not monetized yet? You have no RPM to copy, so try a low assumption and a high one. The gap between them is the honest answer.

Country by country

Nigeria

Nigeria is on the full list and the 500-subscriber list, so a creator living there can reach fan funding and Shopping first and ad revenue later. YouTube's payment table offers check or wire for a Nigerian address, with no EFT.

The threshold table has no naira row. Check the reporting currency in your own AdSense for YouTube account before assuming a figure. In US dollars, the payment threshold is $100.

Nigeria isn't on the IRS treaty list. YouTube says that without a treaty, withholding is 30% of earnings from US viewers once valid tax info is on file, so $30 on every $100 earned from viewers in the US. Earnings from viewers elsewhere aren't touched. Skip the tax info on an individual account and YouTube can withhold up to 24% of all your earnings instead.

South Africa

The payment route is what stands out. YouTube's payment table marks EFT as the only option for a South African address, with check and wire both listed as unavailable. It's also the one country here with its own threshold row: R1,000 for payment if your reporting currency is rand.

South Africa is on the IRS treaty list. That makes a lower withholding rate possible, not automatic. YouTube gives a range of 0-30% on US-viewer earnings and tells creators to confirm any treaty claim with a tax advisor.

Kenya

On paper, Kenya matches Nigeria: both Partner Program lists, check or wire, no KES threshold row and no entry on the IRS treaty list.

The trap is the word "monetized". Reaching the 500-subscriber tier gets you fan funding and Shopping. Ad and Premium revenue sharing come with the higher tier, so a Kenyan channel at 600 subscribers shouldn't expect ad revenue yet.

Ghana

Ghana is the odd one out. It's on the full list but missing from the 500-subscriber list, so creators living there have no early tier today. The first door is the full threshold of 1,000 subscribers.

The list says nothing about viewers, or about what a channel earns once it's in the full program. Payment options are check or wire. There's no GHS threshold row and no entry on the IRS treaty list.

What changes on 1 February 2027

YouTube has announced a higher bar for new applicants from that date: 1,000 subscribers plus 8,000 qualified watch hours in 365 days, or 20 million qualified Shorts views in 90 days. Today's figures are 4,000 hours in 12 months or 10 million Shorts views in 90 days.

Channels already in the program keep their status, but they need to accept the updated terms in YouTube Studio by 31 January 2027 or they'll stop earning from the affected features. Earning from the Shorts pool will also need 10 million qualified Shorts views over 90 days. If you're near 4,000 hours, the calendar now matters as much as the formula.

Shorts work differently

Everything above is long-form. For Shorts, RPM runs on engaged views, and the money comes from a monthly pool split by each creator's share of engaged views in each country, with creators keeping 45% of what's allocated to them.

So don't add Shorts engaged views to the view counts in these examples, and don't apply a long-form RPM to them. Our methodology explains how Arbahh handles the format.

Creating in French? Our French guide covers Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, Cameroon and the DRC.

Questions creators ask

How much does YouTube pay per 1,000 views in Nigeria?

YouTube doesn't publish that number, so any single figure you see online is someone's estimate. Your own RPM in YouTube Studio is the figure that describes your channel. At a $1.00 RPM, 1,000 long-form views would earn $1.00, but that's arithmetic and not a Nigerian rate.

Can I earn from YouTube ads if I live in Ghana?

Yes, if you meet the requirements. Ghana is on the full Partner Program list, which is the one that matters for ad revenue. It isn't on the list for the 500-subscriber tier, so you won't get that earlier step.

Does it matter where my viewers live?

It can. YouTube says CPMs vary by geography, and the advertising part of your RPM generally follows. The Partner Program lists are about where creators live, so a country missing from a list isn't a statement that views from there earn nothing.

Is $100 the payment threshold everywhere?

No. It depends on the reporting currency in your AdSense for YouTube account. South African rand has its own R1,000 row. Naira, shillings and cedis don't appear in YouTube's table, so look at your own account.

Why doesn't Arbahh give an RPM for each country?

Because we have no data that would support one. We could print a range and it would look useful, but it would be a guess, and the numbers in your own Studio are better than any guess of ours.

Sources

Policy pages read on 31 October 2026