YouTube has launched its Shopping affiliate program in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, allowing eligible creators with as few as 500 subscribers to earn commissions on products they tag in their videos, the Google-owned platform said on Monday.
Amazon is the program’s first affiliate partner in the three markets, and YouTube plans to add more retailers, the company said in a blog post.
Creators in the YouTube Partner Program can tag products in long-form videos, Shorts and livestreams and earn a commission when viewers make a qualifying purchase. Viewers who select a product are sent to Amazon to complete the purchase.
More than 40 million logged-in users in Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and the UAE made shopping-related searches on YouTube in June 2026, the company said. Globally, people watch more than 40 billion hours of shopping-related content on the platform each year.
“Our affiliate partnership with Amazon helps connect businesses of all sizes with customers at the exact moment they’re looking for recommendations,” said Javid Aslanov, head of YouTube in the Middle East and North Africa.
Sumit Kapoor, director of marketing and Prime at Amazon Middle East, North Africa and Turkey, said the partnership would give creators in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt a new way to connect their audiences with millions of products.
In a Kantar survey cited by YouTube, 86% of surveyed viewers in Saudi Arabia and the UAE said YouTube has the most trusted creators for product recommendations while shopping.
Regional creators can also earn commissions on purchases by viewers in other markets where YouTube Shopping is available. The program uses Google AI to identify products in videos and suggest tags, and viewers watching on connected TVs can scan an on-screen QR code to finish checkout on their phones.
Besides the 500-subscriber threshold, creators joining the expanded partner program must have uploaded three public videos in the previous 90 days and reached either 3,000 valid public watch hours in the past year or 3 million valid Shorts views in 90 days, The National reported, citing YouTube’s guidelines.
