Several months back Netflix announced plans to introduce additional charges for account sharing to paying subscribers. The streaming platform rolled out this approach in a handful of regions and is testing a system in five countries: Argentina, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. The goal is to discourage password sharing with users who do not pay for the service by adding a separate monthly fee for access from devices outside the user’s home.
The test period begins on August 22, with a small group of users in those five markets encountering the new charges as part of a controlled rollout. The introduced costs apply specifically to subscribers who log in from a device located outside the primary residence and connect to a television screen. The new model is branded as Netflix Homes. It adds a monthly surcharge for each extra household that uses the account from a device connected to a TV outside the home. The additional price is set at 2.99 dollars per month for each extra home in the United States and many other markets, while the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Argentina have their local equivalents: 219 pesos or the locally listed amount in euros for those regions.
Important nuances accompany this change. Netflix states that the fee is applied only when a user chooses to add extra homes to their account; it is not automatically charged to every login from outside the home. The Help Center notes that, beginning August 22, 2022, subscribers will be prompted to decide whether they want to add homes for an additional monthly fee to use Netflix in those locations. In contrast, activity from laptops or mobile devices while the user is on the go typically does not incur extra charges in regions where Netflix Homes is active. This distinction hinges on the device type and how it is used to access content.
The policy shifts when the viewing device is a television. In that scenario, Netflix explained that access from a computer or a mobile phone to a TV is allowed for up to a two week window per login, after which the user would encounter the extra charge if the login occurs in a location outside the usual home. The rule is designed to limit long term use of a Netflix account at a distant address, and it is effectively a cap on out of home TV viewing tied to a cost-per-extra-home model. The system may allow a user to stay connected for a two week period, but the arrangement is bound by location and time constraints observed by Netflix’s monitoring systems.
Users should expect that a login outside the home will trigger the need to pay if that activity crosses the two week limit or if it continues beyond one annual reactivation per location. In practice, a user who streams from a TV located outside the usual home for more than the two week window would face an additional monthly fee for each extra household. The billing of these extra residences depends on the plan subscribed to by the account holder. Those on the Basic plan will be able to add up to two extra homes, while Standard and Premium plans allow more extensive additions, up to three for Premium according to the policy details visible in the rollout materials.
Netflix has stated that it uses detection methods to identify households connected to an account. The company explains that it relies on signals such as IP addresses, device identifiers, and activity patterns within the profile to determine when a login originates from an additional residence. This approach aims to differentiate genuine travel or short term access from sustained use of a Netflix account at a separate location, and it informs the enforcement of the new fee structure in affected regions.