HBO Max will begin to stop the use of shared accounts globally during this year 2026

HBO Max has announced that it will begin to implement measures to curb the use of shared accounts globally during this year 2026, so that it will promote options such as paying an additional subscription to add an additional Member Add-on.

As is customary in the rest of the streaming content platforms, the service owned by Warner Bros. Discovery has a usage policy that details that HBO Max accounts are intended exclusively for the account holder and the people they live with, so it does not contemplate their shared use with people outside the home.

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To offer a solution to password sharing, the company announced a new Additional Member Add-on option in the United States in April of last year. In the style of Netflix, this tool allows users who are not part of the household to access an HBO Max account, for $7.99 per month (6.77 euros at the exchange rate). Thus, it began to promote this initiative more insistently during the month of August.

Now, HBO Max has shared its intention to extend the cessation of shared accounts globally, with measures that it will begin to implement in all countries where the streaming service is available.

This was detailed by the head of streaming at Warner Bros. Discovery, JB Perrette, during a company results conference held this Thursday, where he clarified that the global expansion against password sharing “will begin in 2026”, as reported by The Wrap and The Verge.

Specifically, as detailed in the transcript of the call, the decision to deploy these measures to stop the use of shared accounts in all countries is due to the fact that the platform has reached other countries in Europe and Latin America. For example, HBO Max will be available in the United Kingdom and Ireland from March, following its recent launch in Germany and Italy.

This has resulted in an increase in subscriptions and therefore more people will share accounts to access the platform, which is intended to drive options such as the adoption of the Additional Member Add-on. “We are in the second phase of the implementation of the system to prevent the exchange of passwords,” said Perrette.

It should be noted that HBO Max has closed 2025 with around 132 million subscribers and, with the extension to other countries, they have announced that they expect to end the first quarter of 2026 with more than 140 million subscribers, on track to exceed 150 million subscribers at the end of the year, as the company has clarified in the statement about its results.