Putting Your Child on YouTube: The Trust Percentages, the Penalty Per Violation, and What Made for Kids Removes

Putting Your Child on YouTube: The Trust Percentages, the Penalty Per Violation, and What "Made for Kids" Removes

Updated September 27, 2026. Every figure below was read on that date from the FTC, the Federal Register, state legislatures, the IRS, the BLS, Census, NCES and YouTube's own documentation, all listed at the end. Items are marked ordered (a court, agency or statute has acted), published (a platform describing its own product), or proposed (a bill not yet law). No retailer prices or star ratings appear. Not legal or tax advice.

A young child using a tablet—an image that more closely matches today’s family-video and privacy discussion. Photo by StockSnap, used without modification. Wikimedia Commons source; CC0 1.0.

The number that ends most of these conversations

Start with the one figure that changes the arithmetic of a family channel: the maximum civil penalty per violation under the FTC Act provisions used to enforce COPPA is 53,088 dollars. It was set by the January 17, 2025 inflation adjustment (90 FR 5580) and left unchanged for 2026, because a government shutdown prevented the Bureau of Labor Statistics from producing the CPI data the adjustment formula needs. The FTC states the figure plainly in its own COPPA guidance. Note the technical point, because getting it wrong invites correction: the adjustment notice raises FTC Act sections 5(l) and 5(m), and never names COPPA.

COPPA covers children under 13. Its 2025 amendments (90 FR 16918) took effect June 23, 2025, with full compliance due April 22, 2026 — already past. Those amendments require separate verifiable parental consent before disclosing a child's personal information to third parties for targeted advertising, bar indefinite retention, and add biometric and government-issued identifiers to the definition of personal information.

YouTube already paid for getting this wrong, and the fix landed on creators

In 2019 the FTC and the New York Attorney General obtained a 170 million dollar civil penalty against Google and YouTube — 136 million to the FTC and 34 million to New York — in case 1:19-cv-02642-BAH in the District of Columbia. The complaint was filed September 4, 2019 and the stipulated order entered September 10. The order requires YouTube to maintain a system for channel owners to designate whether content is directed to children, with conspicuous notice that such content may be subject to the COPPA Rule. The compliance date was four months after entry, with parental-consent handling of previously collected data due 90 days after that.

The consequence for you is a Studio setting and a legal duty. YouTube's documentation is blunt: "it is your legal responsibility to comply with COPPA and/or other applicable laws and designate your content accurately", and "do not rely on our systems to set your audience for you". If you get it wrong, "you may face compliance issues with the FTC or other authorities, and we may take action on your YouTube account." YouTube publishes no strike count and no dollar figure of its own for misdesignation.

What "made for kids" removes, counted

Designating a video as made for kids disables fourteen published features: autoplay on home, cards and end screens, video watermarks, channel memberships, comments, the donate button, likes and dislikes on YouTube Music, live chat and live chat donations, merchandise and ticketing, the notification bell, personalized advertising, playback in the miniplayer, Super Chat and Super Stickers, and save to playlist or watch later. Setting the whole channel as made for kids additionally removes posts and Ask Studio.

Ads still run, but only contextual ones — based on the content being viewed, the current search and general location. "Personalized ads, remarketing, and other personalized targeting features are prohibited." Prohibited ad categories on this content include media unsuitable for children, age-inappropriate games, dating, beauty and weight-loss products, food and beverages, regulated products, political, religious and adult advertising.

Now put that next to the revenue splits YouTube publishes: 55% of net ad revenue on the watch page, 45% on Shorts Feed ads, and 70% of net revenue on channel memberships and the Super features. Memberships, Super Chat, Super Stickers and merchandise are all on the disabled list — so the 70% module is effectively unavailable on made-for-kids content. YouTube never states that consequence in one place; it is an inference from two published lists, and it is labelled as one here. On the revenue effect of losing personalized ads, the only thing YouTube has ever published is a sentence from September 2019: the changes "will have a significant business impact on family and kids creators". No percentage, ever.

The A-versus-B that actually decides this

Four states now require a share of earnings from content featuring a minor to be held in trust until the child turns 18. Anchor the comparison on a published statutory figure rather than an invented one: Utah's own threshold of 150,000 dollars in social-media income in a calendar year, which is the point at which its kidfluencer provisions engage. Assume the child appears in 30% of content — the threshold every one of these statutes uses.

Option	Rate applied	Per year on 150,000	5 years	10 years
A1. Minnesota-style set-aside	half the content share, so 15%	22,500	112,500	225,000
A2. Child-performer trust rate (Utah, Illinois, California Coogan)	15% of gross earnings	22,500	112,500	225,000
A3. California, on the 65% figure	65% of a 30% proportion, so 19.5%	29,250	146,250	292,500
B. One COPPA violation	statutory maximum	53,088	—	—

All figures in dollars; the multiplication is mine, the rates and thresholds are the statutes'. The line to sit with is the last one. A single COPPA violation at the maximum exceeds more than two years of the trust contribution. And violations are counted per instance, not per channel — ten of them is 530,880 dollars, which is more than the ten-year trust column.

For scale on the A column: NCES puts the average total cost of attendance for a first-time full-time undergraduate living on campus at 27,100 dollars a year at a public four-year institution and 58,600 at a private non-profit, in constant 2022–23 dollars. A 225,000-dollar trust is about 8.3 years of the public figure. That is what the statutes are actually for.

The four state regimes, with the thresholds that switch them on

State	Citation and effective date	When it applies	Set-aside and records
Minnesota	Minn. Stat. 181A.13; July 1, 2025	at least 30% of compensated video content in a 30-day period features the minor, and the platform's compensation threshold is met or compensation is at least 0.01 dollars per view	at least half the content percentage that includes the minor; records kept until the minor turns 21, including total minutes of content and minutes featuring the minor
Utah	Utah Code 34-23-501 to 504 (H.B. 322); May 7, 2025	average monthly content share at least 30% and social-media income at least 150,000 dollars in a calendar year; trust transfer once compensation reaches 20,000 dollars	statutory formula; records at least 2 years; minor may sue up to 5 years after turning 18; also creates a right of deletion
California	SB 764, Family Code 6650–6653; signed September 26, 2024, operative January 1, 2025	at least 30% of compensated content in a 30-day period, and the platform threshold or at least 0.10 dollars per view (a committee analysis also states at least 1,250 dollars monthly)	a percentage in proportion to the minor's appearance; trust at a California institution within 7 business days; statement to the minor monthly
Illinois	820 ILCS 206/90(c)(1); January 1, 2025 (P.A. 103-721)	child performers in motion pictures, television, commercials, music videos, digital productions and industrials	at least 15% of gross earnings into the account

Two honesty notes on that table. Illinois also has vlog-specific provisions, and this article states none of their figures because the Illinois General Assembly's own site could not be reached — the 15% above is the child-performer rate published by two Illinois state agencies. And California's 65% figure appears only in the bill author's official release; the two legislative committee analyses describe a proportionate percentage without it. Row A3 above is therefore the weakest row in this article, and is labelled as such.

For contrast, the older rule: California's Coogan requirement, Family Code 6752(b)(1), takes 15% of the minor's gross earnings under the contract into a trust established within 7 business days, and a California entertainment work permit becomes void after 10 days if the trustee's statement is not attached. And federally, there is nothing: 29 U.S.C. 213(c)(3), implemented at 29 CFR 570.125, exempts child actors and performers from the FLSA's child-labour provisions altogether. No federal trust requirement, no federal percentage, no federal hour limits. Every number in this article is state law.

Tip: Minnesota requires the records kept until the child is 21 and Utah for at least two years, and both specify total minutes of content against minutes featuring the minor. That is a paper obligation that outlives most hard drives, so keep the trust paperwork and the logs somewhere physical too — a fireproof document bag costs a fraction of a single month's set-aside. (These are Amazon Associate links — we may earn a small commission on qualifying purchases.)

The tax side, which nobody plans for

All figures for tax year 2026, from Rev. Proc. 2025-32 and current IRS instructions.

• A dependent's standard deduction cannot exceed the greater of 1,350 dollars or 450 dollars plus earned income.
• Kiddie tax: Form 8615 applies where a child's unearned income exceeds 2,700 dollars; above that it can be taxed at the parent's rate. The amount used to reduce net unearned income is 1,350 dollars.
• Self-employment tax is 15.3% — 12.4% Social Security plus 2.9% Medicare — and it starts at net earnings of 400 dollars. A child earning as a performer rather than an employee owes this.
• Form 1099-NEC reporting now starts at 2,000 dollars for payments made in 2026, up from the long-standing 600, and may be indexed from 2027.
• The annual gift-tax exclusion is 19,000 dollars for 2026, which bounds what a parent can move into a child's account per year without filing.

Read the last two together and something awkward appears: a 22,500-dollar annual set-aside is above the 19,000-dollar gift exclusion. The trust statutes are not gifts — they direct the child's own earnings — but the arithmetic is close enough that the distinction is worth confirming with a tax professional rather than assuming.

Taking it down later is not a published process

This is the part most worth knowing before you upload, because it is the part with no numbers. YouTube's privacy-complaint process requires a first-party claim — "complaints are not accepted when filed for other family members". So a parent cannot use it on a child's behalf, and a child cannot use it until they are old enough to file. The creator is notified and given an opportunity to remove, edit or blur; making a video private is expressly not an acceptable remedy. YouTube publishes no number of hours or days for that window. The only 48-hour figure YouTube publishes anywhere is specific to non-consensual intimate imagery under the US TAKE IT DOWN Act, and quoting it for ordinary privacy complaints is wrong.

Deleting a channel "will permanently delete your content", and "it may take some time" — no day count. Google's retention policy states deletion "generally takes around 2 months", including a recovery period of up to one month, with data remaining on backup systems for up to 6 months. Utah is the only state in the table above that creates a minor's right of deletion by statute.

So the durable asymmetry: the trust money is recoverable at 18, and the footage is not.

What is coming, and what is not law yet

Washington has two bills — HB 1820 and HB 2400 — neither enacted; HB 2400 would register creators at 12,000 dollars or more in twelve months, allow deletion for ages 18 to 23, require platform reports from April 1, 2027, and set penalties up to 50,000 dollars per violation. New York's S825B and Maryland's HB 21 are likewise not enacted. California's SB 1247, which would let an adult request removal of paid family content featuring them as a minor, passed a Senate committee 9-0 and as of April 21, 2026 was set for Judiciary — still a bill. None of those figures should be planned around.

Where the sources disagree

• California's set-aside percentage. 65% in the author's official release; unspecified "proportionate percentage" in both committee analyses. The enacted Family Code text could not be read.
• California's earnings trigger. 0.10 dollars per view in one analysis; at least 1,250 dollars monthly in the other, which also notes it was amended down from 15,000 annually.
• YouTube's disabled-feature lists differ across its own pages. "Stories" appears in the January 2020 blog post but in neither current help-centre list; the creator-facing and viewer-facing lists differ on YouTube Music likes and on channel-level comments.
• The 53,088 figure has two true years. Set in the 2025 adjustment, carried into 2026 unchanged. Say "set in 2025, unchanged for 2026" rather than dating it to either year alone.

The wider numbers, for context rather than decoration

Census reports that 39% of families included the householder's own children under 18 in 2025, down from 54% in 1975. BLS puts 2024 average annual expenditures at 78,535 dollars per consumer unit, of which 3,609 went to entertainment. For escalating any of the figures in this article: over the twelve months to August 2026, all items rose 3.4%, recreation 2.7%, recreation services 2.4%, and education and communication services 3.1%.

Five things to settle before the first upload

1. Work out whether you cross 30%. Every one of these statutes turns on the child appearing in at least 30% of compensated content in a 30-day window. Below it, none of them apply. Above it, all of your state's do.
2. Open the trust before the earnings, not after. California gives 7 business days from the moment the criteria are first met.
3. Log minutes from day one. Total minutes of compensated content and minutes featuring the minor, kept until the child is 21 in Minnesota.
4. Set the audience designation deliberately, knowing it removes 14 features and the 70% commerce module, and that YouTube tells you not to rely on its automatic detection.
5. Decide about the footage, not just the money. There is no published takedown window, deletion takes about two months with six months of backups, and only Utah gives the child a statutory right to demand removal.

The habit that makes all of this manageable is the same one that applies to any family cost with a long tail: find the published number, check what year and what jurisdiction it belongs to, and run it out rather than reacting to it. That is what turns a headline spending figure into something you can actually budget against, and what makes a small recurring household number worth ten years of attention.

Where each number came from

• COPPA Rule and the FTC's statement of the per-violation maximum: ftc.gov. 2025 Rule amendments, 90 FR 16918: federalregister.gov. Penalty amount set January 17 2025: federalregister.gov. Unchanged for 2026: federalregister.gov
• 2019 FTC and New York action against Google and YouTube: ftc.gov and ag.ny.gov
• Made-for-kids designation duty and the disabled-feature list: support.google.com. Viewer-side effects: support.google.com. Contextual-only advertising: support.google.com. Revenue splits: support.google.com
• Minnesota Statutes 181A.13: revisor.mn.gov. Utah H.B. 322 as enrolled: le.utah.gov. California SB 764 signing: gov.ca.gov. Illinois child-performer trust requirement: labor.illinois.gov
• California Coogan requirement, SB 210 as chaptered: leginfo.ca.gov. FLSA exemption for performers, 29 CFR 570.125: ecfr.gov. State entertainment child-labour table: dol.gov
• Tax year 2026 inflation adjustments, Rev. Proc. 2025-32: irs.gov. Self-employment tax: irs.gov. Form 1099-NEC threshold: irs.gov
• YouTube privacy-complaint process: support.google.com. Channel deletion: support.google.com. Google data retention: policies.google.com
• Washington HB 2400 bill text: app.leg.wa.gov. California SB 1247 committee analysis: sjud.senate.ca.gov
• BLS CPI for August 2026 and the Consumer Expenditure Survey: bls.gov and bls.gov. Census families and living arrangements, 2025: census.gov. NCES cost of attendance: nces.ed.gov

This article summarises enacted statutes, agency actions, federal statistics and platform documentation as of September 27, 2026, and the author holds no law licence and no tax credential. It is not legal or tax advice for any channel or family. Trust percentages, thresholds and effective dates differ by state and change; bills described as not enacted may or may not pass. Confirm your own position with a qualified attorney and tax professional in your state before relying on any figure here.