YouTube's "recommended upload encoding settings" are recommendations, not an entry requirement. That is not an interpretation — it is what the page says about itself. The heading sentence reads "Below are recommended upload encoding settings for your videos on YouTube," and in the video section YouTube writes: "Variable bitrate. No bitrate limit is required, though we offer recommended bit rates below for reference."
Almost every third-party copy of this table drops those two clauses and presents the numbers as a spec sheet you have to hit or be rejected. Below is the full list as YouTube publishes it, plus the parts of the page that tell you how much slack you actually have. (The page also carries the line "These features are only available to partners who use YouTube Studio Content Manager." near the top, so read it in full when something rides on it.)
The container settings
YouTube names three container-level items, quoted here exactly as they appear:
- "Container: MP4"
- "No Edit Lists (or the video might not get processed correctly)"
- "moov atom at the front of the file (Fast Start)"
The wording on the second one matters. YouTube says an edit list might cause the video to not get processed correctly — a possibility, not a guarantee of failure. Treat it as a risk to remove when you control the export, not as the explanation for every failed upload.
The third item is the one most people have never heard of. "moov atom at the front of the file (Fast Start)" is about where the file's index sits inside the MP4.
The audio settings
- "Audio codec: AAC-LC or Opus or Eclipsa Audio"
- "Channels: Stereo or Stereo + 5.1 or Stereo + Eclipsa Audio"
- "Sample rate: 48kHz"
Recommended audio bitrates are given separately, and YouTube is explicit that they do not scale with your picture: "The bitrates below are recommendations for uploads. Audio playback bitrate is not related to video resolution."
| Type | Audio Bitrate |
|---|---|
| Mono | 128 kbps |
| Stereo | 384 kbps |
| 5.1 | 512 kbps |
YouTube adds: "Note: For Eclipsa Audio (immersive audio), we recommend 128 kbps per channel."
The video settings
Verbatim from the same page:
- "Video codec: H.264"
- "Progressive scan (no interlacing)"
- "High Profile"
- "2 consecutive B frames"
- "Closed GOP. GOP of half the frame rate."
- "CABAC"
- "Variable bitrate. No bitrate limit is required, though we offer recommended bit rates below for reference"
- "Chroma subsampling: 4:2:0"
Two of these are worth slowing down on.
"GOP of half the frame rate" ties the keyframe interval to your frame rate rather than to a fixed count.
"Variable bitrate" paired with "No bitrate limit is required" is the most misquoted line in this topic. The tables below are reference points, not a ceiling you get bounced off. What YouTube does not say anywhere on the page is what happens if you exceed the recommendation — so treat any specific consequence you read elsewhere as unsourced, and check the official documentation if you need certainty.
Recommended video bitrates for SDR uploads
These are YouTube's numbers, copied as published. Standard frame rate covers 24, 25 and 30; high frame rate covers 48, 50 and 60.
| Type | Standard Frame Rate (24, 25, 30) | High Frame Rate (48, 50, 60) |
|---|---|---|
| 8K | 80 - 160 Mbps | 120 to 240 Mbps |
| 2160p (4K) | 35–45 Mbps | 53–68 Mbps |
| 1440p (2K) | 16 Mbps | 24 Mbps |
| 1080p | 8 Mbps | 12 Mbps |
| 720p | 5 Mbps | 7.5 Mbps |
| 480p | 2.5 Mbps | 4 Mbps |
| 360p | 1 Mbps | 1.5 Mbps |
YouTube attaches one playback note to this table: "To view new 4K uploads in 4K, use a browser or device that supports VP9."
Recommended video bitrates for HDR uploads
| Type | Standard Frame Rate (24, 25, 30) | High Frame Rate (48, 50, 60) |
|---|---|---|
| 8K | 100 - 200 Mbps | 150 to 300 Mbps |
| 2160p (4K) | 44–56 Mbps | 66–85 Mbps |
| 1440p (2K) | 20 Mbps | 30 Mbps |
| 1080p | 10 Mbps | 15 Mbps |
| 720p | 6.5 Mbps | 9.5 Mbps |
| 480p | Not supported | Not supported |
| 360p | Not supported | Not supported |
The bottom two rows are the detail nobody repeats. Where the SDR table gives a number for 480p and 360p, the HDR table says "Not supported" — YouTube's own text in those cells, not a blank we filled in. HDR has a floor in this table; SDR does not.
Frame rate: match the source, and the list is not exhaustive
YouTube's instruction is about fidelity to the original: "Content should be encoded and uploaded in the same frame rate it was recorded."
Then comes the clause that gets cut everywhere: "Common frame rates include: 24, 25, 30, 48, 50, 60 frames per second (other frame rates are also acceptable)."
So the six numbers heading the bitrate columns are common cases, not a whitelist. If you shot outside that set, YouTube's page says it is acceptable — and the same page tells you not to conform it to a "standard" frame rate, because matching the recording is the actual recommendation.
There is one conversion YouTube does ask for: "Interlaced content should be deinterlaced before uploading."
What to do with all of this
Read together, the page is a short brief: export H.264 in MP4 at your source frame rate and resolution, keep audio at 48kHz, and aim somewhere near the bitrate for your row. "Near" is doing real work — the page states "No bitrate limit is required," and it says nothing about what happens to a file above or below the recommended figure. That behaviour is simply not documented on the page.
The practical problem is usually the opposite of the tables: camera and screen-recorder output often sits far above the recommended bitrate for its resolution, which means a big file and a long upload. Re-encoding toward the figure in your row is what the tables are there for.
Try it right here
Runs in your browser. Your file is not uploaded anywhere.
To set the knobs yourself rather than accept a preset, use the standalone video compressor; how to compress a video without losing quality explains what bitrate and resolution each cost you.
Color space: what YouTube assumes when you say nothing
YouTube's SDR recommendation is BT.709 — "YouTube recommends BT.709 as the standard color space for SDR uploads." More useful is its published behaviour when your file does not declare one: where "The upload color space has unspecified TRC," YouTube "Assumes BT.709 TRC," and where "The upload color space has unknown or unspecified color matrix and primaries," it "Assumes BT.709 color matrix and primaries."
An assumption is not a conversion, and YouTube frames the rest as standardisation: "YouTube standardizes functionally similar color matrices and primaries before processing the video." The takeaway is narrow but real — if your exporter lets you tag color space, tagging it removes the guesswork.
FAQ
What bitrate should I upload 1080p to YouTube at? YouTube recommends 8 Mbps for 1080p at 24, 25 or 30 fps, and 12 Mbps for 1080p at 48, 50 or 60 fps. For HDR 1080p the recommendations are 10 Mbps and 15 Mbps respectively. These are reference figures — the page states "No bitrate limit is required."
Will YouTube reject my video if the bitrate is too high? YouTube's encoding page does not say. It says no bitrate limit is required and offers the tables for reference, and it gives no stated consequence for exceeding them. If you need a definitive answer, check the official documentation rather than a forum figure.
What are the best export settings for YouTube? The ones YouTube itself lists: MP4 container with the moov atom at the front, H.264 High Profile with CABAC, progressive scan, closed GOP at half the frame rate, 4:2:0 chroma subsampling, AAC-LC audio at 48kHz, and variable bitrate near your resolution's row in the table above.
Does YouTube support HDR at 1080p and below? The HDR bitrate table gives figures down to 720p and then says "Not supported" for both 480p and 360p. So HDR has recommended bitrates at 1080p and 720p, and those two bottom resolutions are marked unsupported in that table.
Can I upload video at 23.976 or another unusual frame rate? YouTube lists 24, 25, 30, 48, 50 and 60 as common frame rates and adds "(other frame rates are also acceptable)." Its actual instruction is to keep the recording's frame rate: "Content should be encoded and uploaded in the same frame rate it was recorded."
Do these settings apply to Shorts too? Shorts have their own rules around aspect ratio and length, which this page does not cover — see YouTube Shorts specs for those. For more encoding walkthroughs, browse the guides hub, and all Clapr tools for the browser-based converters and compressors.
All settings and bitrate figures quoted from YouTube's "YouTube recommended upload encoding settings" help page, checked 16 September 2026. Google revises these pages — verify against the official documentation before relying on a number.
