Spotify now checks Family plans with an in-person QR scan and a 12-month ban

Spotify has started asking some Premium Family members to prove they live with the person who pays, and the proof is a QR code that only works when both phones are in the same room. The plan manager opens the code inside the Spotify app, and the member has to scan it with their own phone camera. The code changes every few seconds, so a screenshot sent over WhatsApp won’t do. Members who fail lose their place on the plan and are barred from joining any other Family or Duo plan for a year.

That is aimed squarely at the most common way people save money on Spotify. A Family plan covers up to six Premium accounts for less than the price of two Individual subscriptions, so a full plan cuts each person’s bill to a fraction of the normal price. Spotify’s rules have always said everyone on a Family plan must share one home address, but the old check asked members to type that address in, and anyone could copy it from the account holder. A sibling across town, a friend in another city or a grown child who moved out could stay on the plan for years without anyone noticing.

The new check is described on Spotify’s own support page, which says the company “may ask some Premium Family members to verify they live with the plan manager by scanning a QR code.” The manager finds the code by tapping their profile picture, then Your Premium, then Manage. The scan only works in the mobile app, so both people need the latest version installed, and Spotify’s troubleshooting advice includes making sure the time and date are correct on both devices and scanning “in person, as it changes every few seconds”. Members have seven days from the moment the prompt appears.

Missing that window carries a long penalty. The member is moved to Spotify’s free, ad-supported tier straight away and, according to the support page, can’t join a different Family or Duo plan for 12 months. Paying for an Individual plan is still allowed. Spotify already applied the same 12-month rule to members who failed its typed address check, as 9to5Google pointed out, but a typed address was easy to fake. A code that rotates on someone else’s phone is much harder.

Harder is not the same as impossible. Users who spotted the prompt on Reddit quickly found that a video call does the job: the account holder shares their screen, and the member scans the code off a laptop or TV, as Android Headlines reported. The scan also proves less than it seems. It shows that two phones were in the same place once, not that two people live together, and Spotify has not said how it picks who gets asked or whether the check will repeat. Families that break the rule on paper without meaning to, such as a student away at university, a parent who works abroad or children who split their time between two homes, have no exception listed on the page.

Spotify has tried this before and backed off. TechCrunch reported a small test in four markets, including the US, that asked Family members to share their exact GPS location, which Spotify shut down after customers complained. The QR code is a less intrusive answer to the same problem, since it doesn’t hand over a location, and the support page stresses that the company does not track where you are. It also arrives after Netflix showed that a crackdown on sharing can win paying subscribers instead of losing them.

The check is not limited to the US, where Family costs $21.99 a month, or about $3.67 per person on a full plan, against $12.99 for Individual. Spotify’s help pages describe the QR verification in English, Spanish, Portuguese, German, French, Swedish, Turkish and Japanese, and the penalty is the same in each. The Family plan costs £21.99 a month in the UK, €20.99 in Spain, 239 pesos in Mexico, R$40.90 in Brazil and ¥1,880 in Japan. Spotify has not said which countries are already sending the prompts.

Reports of the prompt surfaced on Reddit and in 9to5Google’s coverage on October 19, and the help page already lists the full procedure. Anyone on a shared plan who sees the notification has seven days to get in the same room as the account holder. After that, the cheapest legal way to keep Spotify without ads is to pay $12.99 a month alone.

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