Spotify is asking some Premium Family members to prove they live with the person who pays for the plan, using a QR code that changes every few seconds, according to the company's support page.
Selected members get a notification and have seven days to finish the check. The plan manager opens Spotify on their phone, taps their profile picture, then Your Premium, then Manage. The member scans the code with their own phone's camera. Spotify says both people must be in the same place and running the latest version of the mobile app. Because the code rotates, a screenshot may expire before it can be used.
Missing the deadline or failing the check carries a penalty: the member cannot join a different Family or Duo plan for 12 months. They can still subscribe to another option, such as Premium Individual at $12.99 a month in the U.S.
The support page says Spotify may ask "some" members to verify, and does not say how widely the checks are being used. A 9to5Google report on October 19, 2026 said Family members must share an address and allow Spotify to request verification again. A Reddit post from December 2025 described the same rotating-code check, so the mechanism has been discussed publicly for about 10 months.
The rule itself is old. Spotify launched the Family plan in October 2014 and described it in a 2019 newsroom post as for members "living under one roof." What has changed is the enforcement tool.
The money explains the stakes. Premium Family costs $21.99 a month for up to six accounts, roughly $3.67 each if split evenly. Individual costs more than three times that. A 12-month lockout from shared plans makes failing the check expensive, and the scan itself is easy for people who share a home. It is harder for members who live together but are temporarily apart, since the in-person step has to fit inside the seven-day window.
Streaming rivals have tightened household rules before, Netflix most visibly. Spotify's version leans on a physical check rather than an account audit, and the unanswered question is how it chooses who gets asked.