YouTube Charts is the set of public rankings YouTube publishes from activity on its own service. The music lists rank songs, official videos and artists by view counts. A Shorts list ranks songs by how many short videos use them, and a podcast list ranks shows by watch time. The product exists because YouTube is among the largest music and podcast services, while reference charts have long discounted its free, ad-supported consumption. Since January 16, 2026, when YouTube stopped supplying data to Billboard, these rankings have been the only regular public record of what audiences consume on the platform.

The lists live at charts.youtube.com. YouTube's documentation pairs them with Music Insights, a separate tool mapping where an artist is popular by city and region. For advertisers, the rankings work less as a scoreboard than as a map of which recordings, languages and markets carry attention on inventory bought through Google Ads or Display & Video 360 (DV360).

How the rankings are built

YouTube splits the product into two families. According to YouTube's Help Center, as of September 2026 the daily charts are Trending, refreshed a few times a day and ranking new songs by popularity on release; Daily Top Music Videos; Daily Top Songs on Shorts; and Trending Movie Trailers. The weekly charts are Top Songs, Top Artists, Top Music Videos, Top Songs on Shorts and Top Podcast Shows.

Each list counts a different unit. Top Songs combines views of every official version of a recording: the official music video, lyric videos and user-made videos that use the official song. Top Music Videos counts the official video alone. Top Artists ranks 100 performers on combined views across a discography, including live performances, remixes, album tracks and collaborations. Top Songs on Shorts counts no views at all; it ranks 50 songs by the number of Shorts created with them. Top Podcast Shows ranks playlists that creators have designated as podcasts by total watch time in a market, with clips and Shorts excluded.

A worked example shows how the layers separate. In the week ending August 6, 2026, "Dai Dai" by Shakira and Burna Boy collected 117,818,800 views on the global songs chart, while its official video registered 84,216,180 on the music videos chart. The video therefore supplied roughly 71% of the song's total. Lyric videos, audio uploads and user-generated clips made up the other 29%. In the same week Indian playback singers held all five top artist positions, with 1,544,704,536 combined views.

Three rules filter the input. Paid advertising views are excluded. Content that breaks YouTube policies may be ineligible. Songs that have charted for a few months without significant viewership growth may be removed automatically, according to the Help Center, which does not define the threshold. National song lists run to 100 positions, and the weekly tracking window used in PPC Land's analysis of the files runs from Friday to Thursday.

Chart positions also feed back into the product. On YouTube Music, a song placed on Weekly Top Songs or either Shorts chart shows its rank beside the title. The local position is displayed by default; the global one appears if the song is absent locally or ranks higher there.

YouTube compiles every list itself. Artists, labels and distributors supply the recordings; on the buy side, planners read the files for contextual music buys, sync licensing and creator partnerships.

Origin and evolution

Music charts first appeared in 2016 as part of YouTube for Artists, a hub launched in 2015, according to Hypebot. On May 10, 2018, YouTube relaunched them across 44 countries at YouTube.com/charts, adding the Trending chart and describing the rankings as based purely on views. Weekly lists then refreshed on Sundays.

Counting only views created an incentive. In July 2019 the Indian rapper Badshah claimed 75 million views in 24 hours, passing BTS with help from a heavy paid campaign, according to MusicTech. Labels were spending $20,000 to $60,000, and up to $100,000 in extreme cases, on TrueView advertising to lift debut counts, according to Variety, citing Rolling Stone. On September 13, 2019, YouTube removed paid advertising views from the charts and from its 24-hour debut records. Eligible sources were defined as direct links, search results, external embeds, the homepage, Watch Next and Trending. Paid views still incremented the public counter.

The next expansion came on November 13, 2023, when YouTube added Top Songs on Shorts, introduced daily song and video charts and redesigned the site. The Shorts lists launched globally and in 12 markets, according to Music Business Worldwide. YouTube said at the time that Shorts averaged 70 billion daily views.

Podcasts followed on May 15, 2025, with a United States top 100 updated every Wednesday and ranked by watch time. Two months later YouTube shut its Trending page on July 21, 2025, after a decade of operation, and pointed users towards category charts for music, podcasts and trailers.

Why the rankings matter for marketers

On December 16, 2025, Billboard narrowed the weighting between paid and ad-supported streams from 1:3 to 1:2.5, so that one album unit on the Billboard 200 became 1,000 paid or 2,500 ad-supported streams, according to Music Business Worldwide. A day later YouTube announced it would withdraw its data. YouTube data had counted towards the Hot 100 since February 2013 and the Billboard 200 since January 2020, according to Rolling Stone. Campaigns that once used Billboard positions as success metrics lost that cross-reference for YouTube consumption.

Fragmentation is the planning lesson. Across 15 national top 100 files for August 7 to 13, 2026, 958 of 1,112 charting recordings appeared in a single market, and only one crossed every tracked territory. Globally charting audio therefore covers a fraction of what most territories play. Demand also moves with events: seasonal catalogue took over in late December, Oliver Tree's death pushed his catalogue across several charts, and Michael Jackson titles re-entered about a dozen territories in late April 2026.

Shorts adds a leading indicator. In March 2026 a Brazilian phonk track by ZXKAI and slxughter held first place on both the Shorts list and the global songs list, a pattern PPC Land read as Shorts adoption driving songs-chart placement. For podcasts, the watch-time basis sets YouTube apart from reach-based measurement, a difference Edison Research flagged when a show briefly overtook The Joe Rogan Experience on YouTube during the third quarter of 2025.

Limitations and open disputes

The central criticism concerns what a view is. The charts count views, which include replays, short sessions and background play rather than completed listens. From August 24, 2026, YouTube counts a public view from the first framein every format. YouTube has not said whether the chart pipeline uses the public counter or a filtered measure, and the files carry no methodology note, so weekly comparisons across that date straddle a change of unknown effect. Nor has any external body cross-checked the numbers since the Billboard feed stopped.

The weighting dispute remains open, and both sides have argued their case publicly. "Billboard uses an outdated formula that weights subscription-supported streams higher than ad-supported," Lyor Cohen, YouTube's global head of music, wrote on December 17, 2025. Billboard's position, according to its own reporting, is that valuing different levels of consumer access and the revenue they generate better reflects user activity.

Rolling Stone questioned at the time whether the 2019 fix went far enough, since paid views still swell the visible counter and can help a video attract recommendations, which in turn produce organic views that do count.

Smaller gaps persist. The Shorts list has no views column, so the format cannot be sized against the others. Global rankings are heavily shaped by Indian consumption. The Help Center states that music charts cover 61 countries or regions but lists 68, and localised versions disagree on podcast coverage: the US English page names the United States, Canada and Mexico, while the UK English page refers to the United States only.

Not the same as

The Trending page. A single, non-personalised list of viral videos per country, launched in 2015 and closed in July 2025. The Trending chart inside YouTube Charts is music-only and survives.

Public view counts. The number under a video mixes organic plays with qualifying advertising views, while the charts exclude paid views. PPC Land's explainers on YouTube views and engaged views set out the competing definitions.

Billboard and national official charts. These blend sales, radio and weighted streams across many services. YouTube Charts cover one platform with no weighting between paid and free users.

Music Insights. A location tool ranking artists by city and region, which excludes Shorts views entirely.

Recent developments

"Dai Dai" dominated the summer. The track reached a then-record 92,669,391 views in the week ending July 16, 2026, peaked at 117.8 million three weeks later, when the Philippines joined the tracked set, and fell to 90,122,937 in the week ending August 27. That same window captured Dolly Parton's death on August 25: her catalogue took 24 places across seven national charts and none on the four global ones, totalling 14,118,226 views.

Measurement pressure is building on the podcast side. On September 3, 2026, Podtrac reported that engaged views trail counted views by 36 points on podcast episodes and moved its own rankings to engaged views. Because YouTube's podcast list ranks watch time rather than views, it should be less exposed to the change that turned the public view into an exposure measure. Shows enter that list only through the podcast designation, part of the setup paths YouTube documented after the chart's May 2025 launch.

Timeline

  • February 2013: YouTube data begins counting towards the Billboard Hot 100
  • 2015: YouTube launches its Trending page and the YouTube for Artists hub
  • 2016: First YouTube music charts appear
  • May 10, 2018: Charts relaunched in 44 countries with a new Trending chart
  • July 2019: Badshah's paid-assisted 24-hour debut prompts scrutiny of purchased views
  • September 13, 2019: Paid advertising views excluded from charts and 24-hour debut records
  • January 2020: YouTube data begins counting towards the Billboard 200
  • November 13, 2023: Top Songs on Shorts and daily charts launch alongside a site redesign
  • May 15, 2025: Weekly Top Podcast Shows chart launches for the United States
  • July 21, 2025: Trending page closes after a decade
  • October 2, 2025: YouTube documents two podcast setup paths for creators
  • December 16, 2025: Billboard narrows its paid to ad-supported stream ratio from 1:3 to 1:2.5
  • December 17, 2025: YouTube announces withdrawal of its data from Billboard
  • January 16, 2026: YouTube data stops flowing to Billboard
  • March 2026: A single Brazilian phonk track leads both the Shorts and global songs charts
  • July 16, 2026: "Dai Dai" records 92,669,391 weekly views
  • August 6, 2026: "Dai Dai" reaches 117,818,800 weekly views as the Philippines joins the tracked set
  • August 24, 2026: First-frame view counting takes effect across all formats
  • August 25, 2026: Dolly Parton dies; her catalogue enters seven national charts within three days
  • September 3, 2026: Podtrac moves its YouTube podcast rankings to engaged views

Summary

Who. YouTube, owned by Google under Alphabet, compiles and publishes the charts. Artists, labels and podcasters appear in them; advertisers, planners and licensing teams read them. Billboard stopped receiving YouTube data after a dispute led by Lyor Cohen.

What. Platform-native rankings of songs, official music videos, artists, songs used in Shorts, podcasts and movie trailers, based on organic views, Shorts creations or watch time, with paid advertising views excluded.

When. First published in 2016, relaunched in 44 countries on May 10, 2018, cleaned of paid views on September 13, 2019, extended to Shorts on November 13, 2023 and to podcasts on May 15, 2025, and left without a Billboard cross-check from January 16, 2026.

Where. On charts.youtube.com and inside YouTube Music, across roughly 60 to 70 countries and regions for music, with podcast lists limited to North American markets.

Why. They give the industry a measure of free, ad-supported consumption that weighted charts discount, and they show advertisers how fragmented music attention is by market, format and event.